From the first minute of the game, Villas-Boas was frowning on the sidelines.
He said in the pre-match press conference that Mikel and Ramires could contain Qin Xiong.
Because he also knew that Liverpool were missing Alonso and Cabaye. There was no deception on this point!
The news of Alonso and Cabaye's injuries came from the national team.
The club might still release a smoke bomb, but the national team did not need to cooperate with the club to play these tricks.
Liverpool lacked creativity in the midfield. Villas-Boas predicted that Qin Xiong would retreat to the attacking midfielder position, and now it looked like there was not much of a problem.
But Liverpool did not strengthen the offensive players in the front line, nor did they arrange for offensive players in the flanks. Instead, they sent three defensive defensive midfielders, which Villas-Boas could not understand!
Mascherano, Lucas, and Tiote were not like Arsenal's Patrick Vieira and Chelsea's Michael Essien, who could frequently rush to the front field from the defensive midfielder position. These three players most of the time conscientiously completed their defensive duties in the midfield.
And there was no outstanding offensive strength in the offensive organization. Liverpool's weakened offensive posture was really puzzling.
After the game started, Liverpool's posture was also very humble. The whole team's formation shrank to the middle and back field, which was slightly conservative.
The offensive rhythm was also not fast.
In the third minute of the game, Chelsea's offense was stuck in a quagmire on the left side of the front field.
Mata was a player that Villas-Boas had high hopes for. Villas-Boas used him as an attacking midfielder, but today he encountered Liverpool's three defensive defensive midfielders, which meant that Liverpool's defense on the side of the defensive midfield line was fast and timely.
In addition to Mata's passing, it would be difficult to seek cooperation with Lampard in the middle. Sometimes it would be very difficult to pass because the opponent's pressing and the formation of the joint defense was too fast.
Chelsea's flanks had to be supported.
After Mata lost the ball, Liverpool's forward attack did not succeed.
Mascherano intercepted Mata's ball and passed the ball to Gerard.
Gerard pushed forward in the midfield to attack. He and Qin Xiong repeatedly hit the wall and failed on the second try. Terry stepped forward and poked the ball away.
Chelsea gradually accelerated the pace of the game.
In the eighth minute of the match, Ashley Cole pressed forward from the side. After supporting Mata on the left flank, he finally made a decent attack.
However, the cross after bypassing Johnson wasn't ideal.
Once Chelsea's offense reached the dangerous area of Liverpool's defense, Tiote would interfere with Drogba in the penalty area. Then, under the joint defense of Skrtel and Thiago Silva, it would be difficult for Drogba to snatch the ball's landing spot unless his teammates passed the ball accurately, allowing him to take the lead and seize an advantageous position. And if he needed to run into position, Liverpool's two center backs would use their bodies to interfere with him, making him unable to succeed.
Just after the football was cleared by Skrtel's header, Gerard successfully received it from the outside.
After Gerard turned around, he began to attack quickly.
Liverpool's offense finally showed its threat at this moment.
Gerard's foot was close to the ground and the diagonal pass was eye-catching.
In fact, Comain was using Gerard to organize the attack in the midfield today!
Baines quickly covered from the left flank!
Liverpool did not put out players to attack from the flanks. Qin Xiong did not pull the flanks to attack. There was only one reason, he was relying on the full backs!
And because of the existence of three defensive defensive midfielders, Liverpool almost gave up the defense on the outside flank. Once Chelsea broke through the flank, the defensive midfielders would directly return to the key position in the penalty area to guard against the opponent's cutting inside. As for the cross, it was up to the opponent to play. Because there was already a dense defense in the penalty area, Drogba could beat everyone to head the ball to break the goal. Otherwise, he had almost no other way to break the goal. The center backs blocked the front point at the point of snatching the ball. The ball could not pass through. Stop the ball? Before the football landed, the defenders around him would destroy the football.
Moreover, Thiago Silva would not be at a disadvantage if he defended against Drogba one-on-one.
Because of this, Comain hid Liverpool's real flank attack from the full backs.
Baines dribbled the ball and rushed forward!
At this moment, Ivanovic and Mikel came to the flank and took the initiative to intercept Baines.
As expected, Baines passed the ball to Qin Xiong in the middle.
Ivanovic and Mikel immediately went back to the middle to participate in the defense.
At this time, the entire audience could see the position of Chelsea's defensive line. There was a wide space between the defensive line and the goalkeeper.
Ramírez ran to intercept Qin Xiong. Qin Xiong took the opportunity to kick the ball to the right and shook off Ramírez. After Ramírez stopped and turned around, Qin Xiong immediately passed the ball to Suárez, who was in front of the defensive line.
After the pass, Qin Xiong immediately sprinted forward. With a burst of speed and acceleration, Qin Xiong came directly in front of Chelsea's defensive line.
At this time, Chelsea's defensive line was already a little numb.
When the Liverpool coaching staff studied Chelsea's defensive characteristics, there was one point that they had to take advantage of today, and that was the defensive strategy of pressing high up the pitch!
To put it bluntly, pressing high up the pitch was the premise of the team's entire defensive line. An organized encirclement in the middle and front field to force the opponent to rush the ball and destroy the opponent's organized offense from the backfield.
This strategy was very effective against a team that was not strong in possession of the ball. It would make the opponent's passing efficiency plummet and unable to organize an effective offense. At the same time, it was easy to create the opponent's mistakes, or immediately launch a quick attack after a successful intercept to catch the opponent off guard.
Liverpool also knew how to use this strategy. Otherwise, why would Comain need so many defensive midfielders?!
Liverpool wanted to break the opponent's high up the pitch, first of all, they had to hide the offensive push point.
They had to let Chelsea's prediction fall short.
This was one of the main purposes of the full backs' offensive push in this game.
At the same time, it was also an important reason why Gerard retreated to play the center midfielder as the midfield's point of release.
Without Alonso and Cabaye, Andre Villas-Boas still insisted on using this defensive strategy in this game. In addition to being unwilling to overthrow the tactical idea that he had worked hard to implement since the beginning of the season, he also thought that he had grasped Liverpool's Achilles' heel: the decline in their comprehensive ball control!
But he was wrong!
Comain stammered at the pre-match press conference that he did not know how to deal with today's game, the starting lineup of three defensive midfielders, and Liverpool's weak and conservative stance at the start of the game. All of these were just to confuse Chelsea!
Qin Xiong did not need to organize the offense, he only needed to link up!
Liverpool did not need to pile up too many strikers in the front line because they had enough space to attack!
When the opportunity presented itself, they could kill Chelsea with just two points!
Simple coordination and speed!
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