Original title: Manchester City’s small victory over Liverpool, a goal difference conceals the strength gap
Yangcheng Evening News reporter Xu Yangyang
The last 1/8 final of the English League Cup ended on December 23. Manchester City beat Liverpool 3-2 at the Etihad Stadium, occupying the last seat in the quarter-finals of the competition. However, in this strong dialogue, Manchester City is obviously superior to Liverpool, and the close score conceals the gap in strength between the two sides.
This is a contest between the Premier League champions and runners-up last season. At that time, Manchester City was only 1 point ahead of Liverpool in the standings. Although Manchester City currently ranks second in the standings this season and Liverpool only ranks sixth, the strength of the two teams is still the top of the Premier League. What is interesting is that the two sides are currently in a similar situation. There are international footballers who have not yet returned to the World Cup. They can only use those international footballers who returned earlier.
City started Palmer, 20, up front alongside Haaland and Riyad Riyad Mahrez and Lewis, 18, at right-back; Liverpool played Elliott, 19, and 18 in midfield. Bajcetic, left winger Fabio Carvalho is only 20 years old.
Judging from the results of the game, Manchester City scored one goal each from Harland, Mahrez and Ake, and Liverpool’s Fabio and Salah also scored. But judging from the process of the game, Manchester City took the lead three times, and Liverpool was always a chaser, always in a passive position and at a disadvantage.
Manchester City’s advantage in statistics is even more obvious. Although the possession rate of the two sides is 57% to 43%, which is not far behind, the number of shots between the two sides is 18 to 7, and the number of shots on target is 9 to 2. The gap is a bit big.
As Manchester City’s scoring leader, Haaland scored the first goal in the 10th minute. Haaland touched the ball 15 times and passed the ball 9 times in this campaign. He almost got an assist on the only 1 key pass. Moreover, he made 1 of 2 shots in the game, maintaining his low possession of the ball but extremely high efficiency. features. Liverpool’s center forward in this campaign is Nunes, but he made 0 of 4 shots, 23 touches, 9 passes, and missed an excellent opportunity to equalize the score at the last moment. His efficiency is far worse than that of Haaland .
Liverpool’s top scorer is Salah. He made 1 of 2 shots and scored 1 goal in this campaign. He played normally, but he has no advantage compared with Manchester City’s right winger Mahrez in the same position. After all, Mahrez also made 1 of 2 shots and had 2 key passes. He scored the second goal for Manchester City, and the shot was completed in one go, which was extremely exciting.
What’s more, Manchester City’s midfielder also sent De Bruyne, the midfielder soul who sent 5 key passes and 2 assists, and Liverpool couldn’t find anyone who could match him.