On April 8, on the eve of the second leg of the Champions League quarter-finals, the 33rd round of the Premier League ushered in a high-profile battle.
Manchester derby, Manchester City VS Manchester United.
The game will start at 4:30 pm local time in England.
In order to watch this game, Klopp ended the afternoon training session early, summoned the players to watch together, and waited for the verdict of fate.
Mo Yang walked slowly to the entertainment room after washing up, only to realize that he was the last one. At this time, almost all the Liverpool players were present.
But the strange thing is that the huge entertainment room seems a little quiet at the moment.
Mo Yang observed silently and found that guys like Salah and Alisson, who were usually noisy, had stern faces and were sitting silently on their chairs. Everyone seemed a little nervous.
This strange atmosphere stirred up Mo Yang's heart, which was originally a little indifferent.
Everyone at Liverpool from top to bottom knows what this game means to the team.
Manchester United can be said to be the last and strongest threshold for Manchester City to win the championship this season.
If Manchester City can step over the corpse of Manchester United, then Manchester City's championship will become a high probability event, and Liverpool's hope of defending the Premier League title will fall to the bottom.
But if Manchester City is defeated by Manchester United in this game, the league score difference between Liverpool and Manchester City will return to two points again.
At that time, the ownership of the Premier League champion will continue to retain a certain degree of suspense.
Until the end of the final round, it is impossible to determine who will win the Barclays Cup.
Klopp was also a little nervous.
Before the game, he roughly analyzed that although this game was an away game, Manchester United still had a great advantage.
Because Guardiola made a choice in favor of the Champions League in this game.
He adopted a rotation game strategy and adjusted the players' positions on the field.
De Bruyne, Walker and Aguero, the three absolute main players of the team, were put on the bench by Guardiola and were rotated.
Moreover, Manchester City just experienced a disastrous defeat in the Champions League in midweek, which had a very serious psychological and physical impact on the players.
As for Manchester United, Mourinho drew the only one in the Europa League quarter-finals.
The game ended early a few days ago. Manchester United defeated Red Bull Salzburg of the Austrian League 5-0 in the first round. It can be said that their morale is at its peak.
Therefore, compared with Manchester City, Manchester United, which ended the game early and got sufficient rest, can almost be said to be waiting for work, and has an advantage in both physical fitness and mentality.
From an analysis of paper strength, Klopp doesn't think Manchester United is weaker than Manchester City.
The only thing that worries Klopp is Mourinho's record against Guardiola.
The two guys have played against each other a total of 20 times over the years, but Mourinho has lost to Guardiola nine times and won only four times.
At this moment, countless Red Army fans with ambivalence are also paying attention to this powerful dialogue.
This mentality is very contradictory. They not only hope that their mortal enemy Manchester United will be defeated by Manchester City, but they also expect Manchester United to defeat Manchester City.
This will give Liverpool a chance to defend their title.
But these Red Army fans soon became disappointed.
After the game started, Manchester United, playing away from home, was very active. They played very aggressively and formed a very high formation. They implemented Mourinho's tactical intention of this game very thoroughly, which was to suppress Manchester City.
Use offense as defense!
Manchester City, on the other hand, slowed down the pace of the game to a consistently leisurely pace, focusing on passing, controlling and penetrating.
When Klopp saw Mourinho's tactics, he immediately grinned and couldn't laugh or cry.
He could see that Mourinho had figured out something from their match with Manchester City, and wanted to imitate their use of high pressure to destroy the organization of Manchester City's midfield and backcourt.
"Mourinho saw from Klopp that Guardiola is not invincible."
"So in this game, he followed Klopp's example and used this unreasonable method to rob you and destroy your midfield and backcourt organizational functions!"
"Let me use an analogy. Manchester City is like a cold swordsman with a master's style, while Liverpool at that time was a rough guy with two hammers. As a result, Manchester City was directly beaten to death by Klopp's two hammers, haha
…”
In the LeTV live broadcast room, Zhang Lu was laughed out loud when she saw Manchester United using Klopp's tricks against Manchester City. This was really interesting.
Manchester City was indeed a bit embarrassed on the field, and Manchester United also got several opportunities to attack in the frontcourt through pressing.
But as time went by, Manchester City gradually adapted.
Many players feel that Manchester United's high-level pressing is not as stressful as the lunatics from Liverpool.
Gradually, through patient passing and control, Manchester City's offensive gradually picked up.
In the 23rd minute of the game, Manchester City and Manchester United continued to fight in the midfield.
First, Pogba, Sanchez, and Herrera surrounded Sterling and got the ball.
As a result, as soon as Sanchez turned around after taking the ball, Fernandinho directly attacked him, overturned the man dribbling the ball, and regained the ball.
Then Manchester City quickly launched an attack from the left.
Sane cut inside the penalty area and forced a pass, but there were too many people in the Manchester United penalty area and Valencia cleared the line in the chaos.
Soon, Sane took a corner kick from the left and directly looked for Kompany in the middle.
Smalling, who was next to him, couldn't hold him back, so he forced Kompany to jump up and hit the header with a hammer, directly breaking through De Gea's fingers.
But Manchester United's tragedy is not over yet.
In the 30th minute, Manchester City once again launched an attack from the left, blasting directly into Manchester United's left rib.
Sterling faced a joint defense in the left penalty area, but he still passed the ball to Gundogan who came forward from the ribs to connect.
Matic saw the danger, he seized the position in advance and got stuck in front of Gundogan.
Unexpectedly, Gundogan pulled back the moment he caught the ball, turned around, and shot the far post with his right foot.
In front of the goal, De Gea's ten-finger barrier was breached again.
Seeing this scene, many Red Army fans at the Etihad Stadium left early.
Many players at the Melwood training base also left early.
Only seven or eight people including Klopp, Mo Yang, Salah and Van Dijk were left.
Manchester United's performance made Mo Yang very disappointed.
In the second half of the game, Manchester United could no longer press forward, but they did not retreat completely. As a result, they just stood there and let Manchester City keep hitting behind.
It's really speechless.
Mo Yang was very disappointed. He understood that his second Premier League championship had flown away. Others also looked depressed.
"Grandpa is right, it is never better to rely on others than to rely on yourself!" Mo Yang muttered with a wry smile.
In a blink of an eye, the second half begins.
Mourinho decisively changed his style of play.
His method is very simple and crude. Since I can't beat you on the ground, then I will play with you long and high.
Manchester United's approach is to attack with force, split the ball to the sides, then take the ball high and attack from a high point.
It looks very simple, but the results are surprisingly good, and it shocked countless people's jaws.
In the 51st minute of the game, Manchester United continued to attack Manchester City's left rib and finally achieved results.
Lingard, Sanchez, and Herrera penetrated Manchester City's defense with continuous triangular passes in the ribs.
But Manchester City reacted very quickly. Otamendi rushed out of the goal and blocked Sanchez on the wing, preventing him from turning around.
As a result, Sanchez spun around in a circle and directly trapped Otamendi behind him.
Then, without waiting for the Manchester City circle to close, he kicked off with his right foot directly to Matic in the middle.
Matic, who was unguarded, faced the ball and directly stopped it with his chest to the advancing Pogba.
Pogba got the ball on the line of the small penalty area, and before Ederson could pounce on him, he got a goal back with a shot.
Less than a minute later, Manchester United changed the offensive line to the left this time.
Sanchez relied on dribbling to break through to Manchester City's right rib. Facing the marker in seat B in front of him, he moved horizontally and kicked off directly.
In the penalty area, Pogba relied on his deft movement to get ahead of Otamendi, and hit his head from close range on the line of the small penalty area to directly equalize.
Listening to the huge cheers coming from the TV, Klopp, Mo Yang, Henderson and others in the Melwood entertainment room looked at each other.
Damn it! What a magical attack from Manchester United, two goals in two minutes!
This is a script written by God!
In the 69th minute of the game, Manchester United received a set kick outside the penalty area on the left side of the front court.
Sanchez sent the ball out with his right foot, as if equipped with a locator, and directly found Smalling in the middle.
Facing the incoming ball, Smalling jumped up and pushed with his foot, directly rewriting the score to 3-2.
Seeing the birth of this goal, Mo Yang and others all had their eyes widened.
Shocked! I’m numb!
"Oh my god, it's pie in the sky again!" Mo Yang muttered to himself.
Then Klopp and others all jumped up from their chairs and hugged each other in celebration.
At the same time, countless Red Army fans also discovered the magical turn of this game, and they all went crazy with joy.
Some fans were so excited that they started setting off fireworks directly in front of their homes.
For a time, the whole of Liverpool was filled with a festive atmosphere.
They have been hostile to Manchester United for hundreds of years, and this is the first time they are happy for their bitter rival to win.
In the end, the game was miraculously reversed by Manchester United.
Even though Guardiola replaced De Bruyne and Aguero, he was unable to regain the score.
Ironically, Liverpool, Manchester United's mortal enemy, seems to be the biggest beneficiary.
It made countless fans dumbfounded!
"Shocking or not, surprising or surprising, stinging or exciting!"
Zhan Jun and Zhang Lu in the live broadcast room were also very excited by this magical turn.
"This is the Premier League! Until the last moment! You never know what will happen!"