Chapter 88 The first round of the Double Red Society

As the well-deserved hegemon of British football in the old English League One era, Liverpool has become stagnant after entering the Premier League era.

On the contrary, the Premier League era has completely become Manchester United's performance time. In the past 10 Premier League seasons, Manchester United has won 7 league championships and completely dominated the Premier League. The number of championships won by both sides in England's top league has been reduced from 7:

18 caught up to 14:18.

However, Liverpool fans are dismissive of this, because not only do they have a 4-time advantage in winning the top league, they also lead 4:2 in winning the Champions League.

In the eyes of Liverpool fans, Manchester United is a wealthy family, but in the minds of Manchester United people, Liverpool is a poor family that was once wealthy.

This attitude is simply like the attitude of the citizens of Liverpool and Manchester towards each other.

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Because the distance between the two cities is only a few dozen kilometers, Manchester United did not go to Liverpool in advance, but took a bus to Liverpool's Anfield Stadium on the morning of the match day.

Along the way, many fans gathered at Anfield Stadium, including Red Devils fans who went to the away game to cheer for Manchester United, and even more of them were Liverpool fans.

When Liverpool fans saw the Manchester United bus passing by, many of them looked at them with ferocious looks and cursed, as if they wanted to scare the Manchester United players.

Of course, this is nothing to the experienced Manchester United players.

After about an hour's drive, the Manchester United team bus arrived at Anfield at around 11 a.m. A large number of Liverpool fans had gathered here, and the Liverpool team had just entered the stadium for warm-up exercises.

Outside the Anfield stadium, a small number of Manchester United fans were quarreling with Liverpool fans. In the middle of the two sides were security guards who were waiting carefully. They carefully separated the fans from both sides.

When they saw the Manchester United bus arriving, the Liverpool fans who were scolding the Manchester United fans stopped their scolding and directed their abuse at the Manchester United bus and the Manchester United players inside the bus.

When Yin Jun and his teammates got out of the car, they were also greeted by Liverpool fans, but he ignored them and followed the large group, quickly entering the stadium through the player tunnel and heading to the visiting team's locker room.

The away team's dressing room at Anfield is very shabby and doesn't look like a stadium for a wealthy team at all.

In fact, the situation of most Premier League teams is similar, and the conditions are very simple. This can be regarded as an off-market move.

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After entering the locker room, everyone quickly changed into their equipment and headed to the court for pre-match warm-up exercises.

It's already very cold in the UK in December. Especially when the weather is bad, it can even get very close to 0 degrees.

Liverpool and Manchester are not far apart, and the climate is similar. This season is cold and rainy. However, on the day of the Double Red Club, it didn't rain, let alone snow.

However, the temperature is still not high. Although the game is held at noon, the weather forecast shows that the temperature is only about 7 degrees. The temperature is low, and it is very easy to get injured if you do not warm up enough.

The two teams each occupied half of the court for warm-up, and there was little communication between them, even though many of them were teammates of the national team.

Today, everyone is an opponent and an enemy!

In the late stage of the warm-up between the two sides, fans have begun to enter the venue one after another.

Although Anfield is not a big stadium and can only accommodate about 54,000 fans, which is far inferior to Old Trafford, which can accommodate 68,000 fans, the atmosphere of this stadium is no less than that of Old Trafford.

, is also a famous devil’s home stadium in European football.

No, while the Manchester United players were still warming up, they were greeted by many home team fans who had already entered the stadium.

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After the warm-up, the two sides returned to the locker room, and Ferguson and the coaching staff began to lay out the tactics for this game.

For the game against Liverpool, the Manchester United people did not need to mobilize at all. But for today's game, Ferguson still said a lot, and the only thing he meant was that in today's game, apart from victory, he would not accept any other result.

Although Manchester United was the league's dominant player in the Premier League era, they did not take any advantage against Liverpool. Especially in the past two or three seasons, the Red Devils have lost five consecutive games to Liverpool in the Premier League. And they are in

The last victory at Anfield was also nearly three years ago in March 2000.

Manchester United is still facing a serious injury situation. Ferdinand, Beckham, Keane, Veron, Butt and other generals are still on the injury list and are unable to play.

Liverpool's situation is much better, except that Sherou is missing. The French midfielder was injured in the UEFA Cup game on Thursday night. However, Liverpool also hid Carragher in the UEFA Cup game on Thursday night.

, Hamann and other main players and stars are retaining their strength for the Double Red Club.

This season, Liverpool has performed very well since the start of the season and has been in the top two in the standings for a long time. This has given Liverpool hope of winning the league, so they mainly focus on the league. This has also led to their success in Europe.

Their performance in the competition was poor. In the first group stage of the Champions League, they were even blocked from the top 16 by the Swiss team Basel.

The final starting lineup of both sides was a 442 formation. On Manchester United's side, Butters was in goal, Gary Neville, Wes Brown, O'Shea and Sylvester formed the defense, and the four midfielders were Solskjaer.

, Scholes, Yin Jun and Giggs, the double forward is the combination of Forlan and Ruud van Nistelrooy.

In the middle, according to Ferguson's arrangement, Scholes was behind and Yin Jun was in front, responsible for the team's offensive organization. Solskjaer was on the right, serving as the right midfielder.

For Liverpool, the goalkeepers are Polish national goalkeeper Dudek, Carragher, Stephen Henkoz, Hyypia and youngster Jimmy Traore to form a back four, with Smicer, Gerrard, Hamann and Murphy in the centre.

On the field, Baros and Irving formed a frontline double spear.

Liverpool's strength is still very strong, which is why they have been at the top of the standings since the beginning of this season, and even led at one point.

Different from Manchester United's four midfielders in a diamond position, Liverpool's four midfielders are in parallel positions. Gerrard and Hamann form a double defensive midfielder, and Czech midfielders Smicer and Murphy are separated on the left and right.

For Liverpool, although Gerrard is in the defensive midfielder, his back-breaking attack is also a great scoring weapon.
Chapter completed!