Volume 3: The Myth of the Gunslinger Chapter 112: A Deadly Counterattack (I)
"Van Persie and Bendtner are both unavailable due to injury, Arsenal are without a full-fledged centre-forward, Arsene Wenger is in a shortage of personnel, and although Eduardo and Theo Walcott can both play in the centre-forward position, their performances can be described in one word: rotten. In this case, our Johnson selflessly helped Arsenal, and in Arsenal's most difficult moments, Johnson's goal saved Arsenal from the brink. ”
The on-site commentator was very dissatisfied with the sarcasm of right-back Johnson, in fact, compared to his predecessor Arbeloa, Glen Johnson has more offensive surname, excellent individual breakthrough and in-cut on the wing, and more good crosses and scoring ability. However, when he had poor defensive ability and stepped forward, Carragher and others needed to be ready to fill the position, and Traore just caught him with an offensive mistake, and Johnson was in the cup.
After Johnson's own goal, the game between Liverpool and Arsenal entered a new stage, an unexpected equalizer, Arsenal's morale was greatly boosted, especially Traore, under the high pressure of ten minutes of bad play, suddenly burst out of strong potential, and this time he launched an attack to get such a result to increase his confidence, after the restart, the Ivorian black guy actually played well on the side, and Li Huan formed a situation of flying on both wings.
Once Arsenal's two wings are revitalized, Liverpool's hoarding of players in the middle has to support the two wings, and Fabregas and Walcoat in the middle have room to play, and Arsenal's traditional short pass penetration is also played. Their attack became gorgeous and compact again.
When Arsenal's attack started, Liverpool's retro style of play was very out of place, because they had fewer opportunities to possess the ball, and Arsenal increased pressing in the front, and the purpose of the long pass in the back field was not as good as at the beginning, whether it was Lucas or Mascherano in the long pass is far from being compared with Alonso, who transferred to Real Madrid, often Arsenal got several opportunities to attack, Liverpool only once, and not necessarily had the opportunity to get the ball.
Seeing their team gradually gaining the upper hand, Arsenal fans also lifted their spirits and supported their players with a unified singing voice. After watching the game in this half, they also found that if they want to compete with the Liverpool fans at Anfield, they must move at the same pace and rhythm, let their players hear the applause and encouragement given to them, and let the players understand that they are not alone even at Anfield.
Liverpool's two wings and midfielders are controlled by Arsenal, Liverpool's breathing has become difficult, and some changes must be made at this time, Benitez's reaction is much faster than Ancelotti, he quickly replaced Lucas like a wandering spirit, in the previous game, Lucas's through passes, insertion of attacks, and wide range of runs are all excellent, but in the second half of the game compared with Arsenal's players, he is like a dumb goose, unable to find his place, and makes frequent mistakes.
Benitez was replaced by Italian phenom Aquilani, who moved this season, and Benitez believes that Aquilani can press higher and wants to add the final link of the attack so that he can create chances. When it comes to creating chances for the strikers to pass the ball, the young Aquilani is better than Alonso. ”
After Aquilani came on the field, he and Gerrard, Benayoun, and Mascherano formed an attack-oriented technical midfield, Gerrard's position was a little back, and Mascherano was the main defense, and the aura Aquilani and Benayoun were the main attackers, so that Liverpool could completely compete with Arsenal for control of the midfield, because of the presence of Torres and Kuyt, in attack, Liverpool was even stronger than Arsenal.
Benitez's substitution, if placed last season, or even any previous season, can be called a wonderful move, but now with Aquilani, although it can't be called stinky chess, it is definitely not too targeted, because Arsenal's recent attack has been dominated by the wing, more accurately, it is Li Huan who dominates on the side, Li Huan's breakthrough, ball distribution and shooting have always been Arsenal's most terrifying weapons.
Replaced by Aquilani, it seems that Liverpool has not changed much, but the players on the field clearly feel the changes in Liverpool, before Aquilani came on the field, Liverpool's attack was more of an impact, retro-style long pass rushing, although not efficient, but fast and concise, and because Liverpool's defense is good, Arsenal can't break Liverpool's defense, Liverpool's inefficient attack is not small, and after Aquilani came on the field, Liverpool's attack became the same short pass penetration as Arsenal, The offense turnover rate has become smaller, and the speed is not as fast as it used to be, but there are more offensive players involved.
Li Huan clearly saw this change in Liverpool, but the substitution had little impact on him, Li Huan's target was only Liverpool's left-back Aurelio, in Li Huan's view, no matter who was on the field, as long as he broke through the left side, Liverpool must come to defend, at that time, the middle will inevitably come out of the void, these vacancy is the best gift to Fabregas, Eduardo, Walcott.
Aurelio has delicate skills at his feet, outstanding dribbling and passing, wide vision, strong breakthrough ability, and is very characteristic of a Brazilian player. But Aurelio's fatal competitive weakness is poor physical fitness, with poor reflexes, speed, explosiveness, and physical confrontation.
And Arsenal's right-back Li Huan's strongest is precisely his physical fitness, reflexes, speed, explosiveness and physical confrontation are extremely strong, and Aurelio has suffered a lot in the confrontation with Li Huan. After Arsenal's massive comeback in the second half, Li Huan and Nasri also strengthened their breakthroughs on the wings, and the combination of Benayoun and Aurelio became under pressure.
In the 70th minute of the game, Johnson, who was bent on making up for it, attacked the front, and pressed Arsenal's left side with Kuyt and Gerrard.
Li Huan's vision is extremely clever, and he can see at a glance that Johnson's pass is too close to the goal, and it will definitely be picked up by goalkeeper Almunia, so he immediately turned around and ran to the front without looking back, this is a good opportunity to attack, Li Huan does not want to receive the ball from the backfield, but also after a long journey to launch a counterattack, at that time Liverpool must have been ready to deploy.
Li Huan saw it very accurately, Almunia easily went forward to get the cross, and then quickly threw the ball to Fabregas, allowing Fabregas to decide the direction and way of attacking.
Fabregas saw Li Huan running before he received the ball, and after the ball came, he had already figured out how to deal with the ball, let the ball go from his crotch, and then ran two steps forward, just dodging the defense of Mascherano who had been following him, with a shake of his ankle, a long pass flew from the front of the Arsenal penalty area to the right side to find Li Huan who was running.
Fabregas underestimated Li Huan's running speed a little, he originally wanted to pass to Li Huan's body and give Li Huan a chance to stop the ball in his chest, but when the ball arrived, it became behind Li Huan, if Li Huan stopped, and then turned to catch the ball, this time Li Huan deliberately started in advance to win the fast attack time wasted, and Liverpool, who defended extremely quickly in this game, will definitely use the shortest time to arrange the defense.
At such times, 0.1 seconds is also fatal.
At this time, Li Huan showed his skillful ball control skills and genius imagination, he just glanced back, did not turn around, and used his right foot to pull back, like a scorpion swinging its tail, the ball passed over his head, and then continued to charge forward without stopping.
Li Huan's ingenious scorpion tail swing technique shocked everyone, and even the fans on both sides paused for a moment, and the stadium fell into an extremely brief pause, and then began to sing again that seemed to never stop.
"Oh! Oh, God! In the VIP box, Bella covered her mouth with her hands, but still exclaimed.
Kroenke smiled slightly, decisively poured himself a glass of wine, and said with a smile: "Baby girl, wait and watch the show." ”
In the ordinary stands, Arsene Wenger's wife, Anne? Brostochos applauded like ordinary Arsenal fans, and her daughter Leah said to her mother in a coquettish voice: "After the game, can you ask me for his shirt?" Mom, please. ”
Annie? Blosterhorse was nervously watching the game, and said casually: "If you want to go to your father, maybe people will have to exchange jerseys with others." ”
Leah was still angry with her father, and said: "I don't ask him, Mom, you can help me get it, he will definitely not change jerseys with the opposing players, you see how fierce they fight each other." ”
Annie? Broschos smiled bitterly and said, "That's on the playing field...... Okay okay, I'll give you a try. ”
Benayoun was the only one intercepted in the middle, and in front of Li Huan, who was running at high speed, Benayoun was like a pillar, and he was swept by Li Huan, and he only stretched out half of his foot to steal.
Aurelio kept retreating sideways, he didn't dare to come forward to defend, just begging not to be broken through by Li Huan in front of him, now the defense in the backfield is not in place, all he can do is delay, as a Brazilian player, Aurelio has extremely high football wisdom, he understands what the best option is at this time.
Li Huan is obviously also a player with extremely high football intelligence, he did not give Aurelio a chance to delay, after the halftime, Li Huan took about ten meters forward, and suddenly cut horizontally and walked towards the middle.
Aurelio saw that the captain Gerrard was over, and his heart relaxed, so he didn't follow Li Huan to move, but just guarded the side checkpoint, in case Li Huan continued to break through from the bottom line after changing direction continuously.
(To be continued)