When Liverpool travel to Manchester City this weekend, all eyes will be on Raheem Sterling as he faces the Reds for the first time since leaving the club in acerbic circumstances over the summer.
Those vindictive souls who make up the majority of the football watching populous will find it hard not to slip into a mentality of wanting to watch him booed and hissed loudly or of wanting to see a heavy Martin Skrtel tackle set the young winger straight. Liverpool fans will be baying for blood.
And with the optimism at Anfield recently, the new manager and the new lease of life, the idea of a full-blooded game filled with high pressure, lots of running and no time on the ball seems inexorably coupled with the idea of crunching tackles and a bit of winding-up. It’s the old English way, after all.
Jurgen Klopp has never managed Sterling, he more than likely has no ill-will towards the player, and he’ll hardly send his players out any more fired-up than he usually does. It’s just that with the away fans booing their former starlet, they might fire the players up even more than the manager does.
And if that’s the case, Liverpool should be careful.
City have the pace and the attacking quality to threaten Liverpool. They don’t need much time on the ball to punish you because they counter-attack with so much pace.
Klopp’s ‘gegenpressing’ is designed to stop counter-attacks. If you get close to an opponent when he wins the ball off you, then he won’t have the time to look up and pick the right pass. But when the opponent is Fernandinho or Yaya Toure they’ll just hold off the tackle and run up the pitch.
It’ll be up to Liverpool to try to stifle City’s attacks when Pellegrini’s men do build-up pressure, but the more important issue for Liverpool is not to give the ball away too cheaply in City’s third of the pitch. A sloppy square ball, or a misplaced pass in a central area will allow City to break, whereas a ball into the channels won’t carry the same risk.
The situation gets even more complicated for Liverpool if Sergio Aguero is back. The Argentine is much quicker and more mobile than Wilfried Bony, so with Aguero at the helm, City can play their counter-attacking game with even more ease. It’s not just the fact that Aguero is a better player than Bony, it’s that Aguero suits City’s Plan A much better than Bony does.
Liverpool will know all about City, having beaten them by playing a very fast-paced game over the last few seasons. Memorable goals from Philippe Coutinho and Jordan Henderson sealed wins for Liverpool at Anfield last season and the season before, and a game at the Etihad was won by City only after Liverpool had the opening goal of the game disallowed by a very dodgy offside call. Ironically, the man denied the goal was Sterling himself!
Since then, though, City have added the pace of Sterling and the precision of Kevin De Bruyne. It’s a new-look City attack, and one that will pose Liverpool more problems.
At the other end, the addition of Otamendi adds even more bulk to City’s defence, meaning that Christian Benteke won’t look as big as he usually does.
This will be a full-blooded game. City are going to try to counter with pace and power, Liverpool will pressurise them with every available body. Pure English entertainment served up with the Raheem Sterling situation bubbling away in the background.
Liverpool will have to be very careful how the approach this one, otherwise City could do to them what they’ve done to City for the last few years.
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