On August 21, the entire Liverpool team went to South London to play away at Selhurst Park against their Premier League second-round opponent Crystal Palace.
This is also the last game of the second round of the Premier League.
In addition to spending 9.65 million pounds in this summer transfer window to introduce Cheku Kouyate, a Senegal midfielder, from West Ham United, Crystal Palace ended the summer window signing plan ahead of schedule.
However, no media criticized Crystal Palace. Instead, Crystal Palace was used to criticize Tottenham chairman Levy for his stinginess.
Because for teams in the middle and lower reaches of the Premier League like Crystal Palace, they are struggling to survive almost every season.
Although Crystal Palace invested less this season, Crystal Palace defeated newly promoted Fulham 2-0 away from home in the opening game of the first round, making a good start to the season.
This match between a weak host and a strong guest has received average attention, and there is basically no suspense about winning or losing.
Because Crystal Palace has never won two consecutive games in the Premier League in recent years, the media is unanimously optimistic about Liverpool, which has just won the European Super Cup.
This is indeed the case. Even if Klopp rotated Moyang, Ibrahimovic, Salah and others in this game, winning the game was relatively easy.
Less than two minutes into the game, Firmino triggered a lucky halo in front of the goal.
Mane dribbled the ball into the penalty area on the right and sent an inverted triangle pass back. Firmino, who was outflanked on the left side of the penalty spot, hurriedly pushed the ball but missed it.
But the ball came to Jota's feet at the left post by some strange coincidence, allowing Jota to easily hit the goal with his heel, getting off to a dream start.
After Salah was replaced in the second half, Arnold stepped in from the wing to assist, and Salah broke through in a small area in the penalty area to rewrite the score to 2-0.
Klopp did not replace Mo Yang until the last five minutes to let Mo Yang warm up.
This season Klopp knows very well that his opponent in the Premier League is still Manchester City.
Because in the match between Manchester City and Huddersfield that just ended yesterday, Manchester City scored an even more terrifying score.
6-0! Blood massacre in Hazhen!
In two rounds of league games, Manchester City scored 8 goals and did not concede a single goal.
Klopp watched that game and fell silent after watching it.
After introducing Bai Lele, a forward with a height of 194cm who can hit both sides and has absolute sprint speed, Manchester City can not only flourish more in the frontcourt this season, but also play a seemingly impressive positional battle.
After Manchester City scored two goals in the first half, Huazhen put up an intensive defense.
Then Aguero's substitute Bai Lele came on the stage. Within ten minutes, with De Bruyne and Silva taking turns to feed the ball, he continued to create threats in front of the Harbin goal. Finally, he scored one and assisted St.
Lin Yiyi.
If Sterling's happiness attribute hadn't been activated and he was happy several times, the score would definitely have been more than 6-0.
Manchester City's changes and Guardiola's changes have made Klopp wary.
Therefore, he and the coaching team have formulated a more rigorous plan in terms of player physical fitness planning.
Four days later, on August 25, the third round of the Premier League kicked off.
The first game is Wolves vs. Manchester City at home.
Just like the match between Liverpool and Crystal Palace, apart from Wolves fans, few outsiders are optimistic about Wolves. The only difference is how many goals Wolves will lose.
Guardiola also rotated several players in this game, such as Manchester City's super-core midfielder De Bruyne.
But the result after 90 minutes slapped everyone in the face.
Manchester City was besieged by a pack of wolves at the beginning of the game. Although they had the initiative in the game, they were never able to break through the Wolves goal.
On the contrary, Wolves, who continuously threatened Manchester City's goal, seized the opportunity from a set kick in the frontcourt in the 60th minute of the second half. Wolves center back Boly sent the ball into Manchester City's goal in front of the goal.
However, there was a handball controversy in this goal. Since the Premier League is still in the process of introducing the var technology that made a splash in this year's World Cup, the referee Oliver could not accurately judge whether Boli had a handball, so the goal was valid.
This goal also completely intensified the game.
Then the Manchester City army pressed forward, and the Wolves turned into wolves and kept counterattacking behind Manchester City. However, time passed little by little and the goal never came.
In the 75th minute of the game, Guardiola couldn't bear it anymore and replaced both De Bruyne and Bai Lele.
De Bruyne replaced Gundogan, and Bai Lele replaced the right winger B who was in poor condition in this game.
The effect of this substitution was immediate.
Just two minutes later, Bai Lele showed his absolute speed and super strong body at the Wolves' home court.
He pushed all the way from the backcourt along the wing and then started to cut inside. After attracting the Wolves' troops to encircle and suppress him, he suddenly poked with his toes and the ball reached De Bruyne's feet.
De Bruyne easily succeeded with a push shot from the left side of the top of the arc!
But after this goal, Manchester City's shooting was still a bit disappointing.
In the end, Wolves and Manchester City shook hands and settled for a 1-1 draw, which surprised countless people.
Klopp was very surprised when he learned the result. He did not expect that Manchester City would fall behind in the first three rounds of the league.
He had always thought that Manchester City was going to fall behind after the start of the Champions League group stage.
It turned out to be an unexpected gift from heaven.
Between this win and a loss, Liverpool gained a valuable two-point difference.
Don't underestimate these two points. Klopp still remembers that last season they were tortured by Manchester City's one or two points for half a season. It was a kind of suffering.
Guardiola looked a bit ugly at the post-match media conference. He said a few words and did not make excuses for the team's defeat, but his words revealed that the World Cup has had a great impact on the players.
This is indeed the case. Due to the influence of the World Cup year, the performance of the Premier League giants with many international players in these three rounds of games was not as energetic as last season.
For example, Manchester United and Tottenham, their opponents in the first round were not strong, but they both won the opponent with difficulty with a score of 2-1. The game situation was even thrilling at one time.
However, Klopp's smile suddenly stopped within a day and he suffered retribution.
Hard facts prove that sometimes laughing too early is not a good thing.
On August 26, Liverpool faced their third-round opponent at Anfield. Brighton, who was fifth from the bottom last season and only managed to escape from the relegation quagmire in the last few rounds of the league.
In this game, Liverpool could be said to have been the main force, but their offense was booming, but no goals were scored.
On the one hand, it is because of the superb performance of Brighton goalkeeper Ryan.
On the other hand, it was because Mane, Salah, Firmino, and even Ibrahimovic, Jota and Shaqiri who were replaced in the 60th minute of the second half, all collectively wasted the offense organized by Mo Yang.
These six people took turns to show how happy football should be played.
As a result, in the final stage of the game, Mo Yang, who was a little autistic after being shown off by Happy Football, took action himself.
But under the influence of anxious mentality, Mo Yang's long-range shots and breakthroughs were not very effective under Brighton's intensive defense.
In the end, Liverpool was held to a 0-0 draw by Brighton at home, and their jaw dropped again.
At the post-match media conference, Mo Yang and Klopp both expressed their bad luck.
This time it was Guardiola's turn to laugh.
Guardiola was so happy to learn that Liverpool was tied with Brighton at home.
In Guardiola's view, Liverpool is even worse than them.
They were tied away from home, playing against a team that ranked ninth last season, while Liverpool was at home, and their opponent was the fifth-to-last relegation team.
Unexpectedly, the two lost points came back in the blink of an eye, which had to make Guardiola feel comfortable.
The media did not criticize the two giants Manchester City and Liverpool too much for their losses.
Because the media are very aware of how insignificant these two draws are in the long Premier League season.