Chapter 359: Chapter 359
A touch of his hand, and it’s covered in blood.
At this moment, Milner’s roar starts echoing in Tang Long’s ears:
"You can’t stop me, kid! You can’t stop my shot!"
Having struck a stroke of luck, Milner is exceptionally excited, like a madman, first shouting in Tang Long’s face and then charging towards Liverpool’s hardcore stands, doing a knee slide!
Amid the cheers of over 60,000 fans at Anfield, Milner blissfully closes his eyes.
Milner originally thought that even if he scored, he wouldn’t celebrate wildly to show respect to his former club.
However, when he truly saw the ball hit the net, a sense of revenge surged through him like lightning, and he couldn’t suppress his joy anymore, celebrating madly!
"Tang, is your nose okay?"
Ranocchia is the first to run over and check his injury.
Yaya Toure and Sterling also walk over with concern.
Demichelis hurriedly signals to Manchester City’s medical team on the sidelines to come in quickly to stop the bleeding.
Tang Long, led by the medical team, goes to the sidelines to stop the bleeding.
During the process of stopping the bleeding, the Liverpool stands behind him keep taunting and jeering at him.
A few extremists even make slant-eye gestures at Tang Long.
"Hey, kid, does your nose hurt? Do you want to go home to your mom and cry?"
"Haha, great jump! If you hadn’t jumped at that moment, the ball wouldn’t have gone in!"
"Tang, thanks for assisting Liverpool, thanks a lot!"
"Tang, you scored an own goal, an own goal!"
Actually, Tang Long’s play wasn’t an own goal because even if he hadn’t touched it, the ball was heading towards the net, so it doesn’t count.
Liverpool fans are shouting this to mess with Tang Long’s mentality.
Amidst the surrounding noise, Tang Long calmly communicates with the medical team about his injury and, after stopping the blood, returns to the field with the referee’s permission.
Just 15 minutes in, Manchester City’s goal has been unexpectedly broken, a terrible beginning.
Former captain Gerrard, though feeling somewhat ashamed that the home team benefited from a misjudgment, maintained a firm belief in his team’s victory, knowing that if Liverpool could keep this score till halftime without letting Manchester City score, gifting them a second defeat would be a straightforward task.
Manchester City’s players are currently surrounded by flames of anger!
They once again experience the prowess of Premier League’s "Blind Quartet" leader Clattenburg.
Their luck is simply bad.
For such deflected balls, Hart might have saved it, but Caballero’s height, reach, and response are not as good as Hart’s. It’s truly unfortunate.
However, the Manchester City players didn’t get discouraged, turning anger into strength, putting more effort into the game.
At the 25th minute of the first half, Manchester City got a great counterattack opportunity.
Tang Long, after a 2-over-1 play with Yaya Toure in midfield, without stopping the ball, flick-passes with the outside of his foot to Sagna on the right wing.
Sagna steadies the ball, feigns an inside cut, then quickly moves down the line to bypass left-back Moreno, and delivers a high cross!
If not for Iheanacho’s diving header lacking power, Manchester City would have equalized.
Just 5 minutes later, the Blue Moon attacks again!
This time, Milner sticks to Tang Long like glue during his breakthrough.
The two run side by side, arms constantly entangled.
Milner is sly; he knows Tang Long’s nose is hurt, so he deliberately tries to hit Tang Long’s face with his palm, aiming for a double hit~
Tang Long sees Milner’s intention, cursing in his heart: You’re really getting cheeky?
He dodges and his palm "whacks" across Milner’s face!
With a smack, Milner holds his face and falls to the ground.
Liverpool players immediately raise their hands, indicating Tang Long’s foul!
However, Clattenburg stretches his arms forward, signaling the game to continue.
He’s really not intentionally blowing the home whistle; Clattenburg, he’s just blind!
19-year-old Iheanacho’s positioning is very clever; although it’s his first year playing in the Premier League, in terms of agility, he’s much better than Bony, slipping between the two center-backs.
Tang Long’s lofted pass arrives as expected!
This time, Iheanacho’s shot shows progress, striking with enough power, but slightly off-target, being palmed away by Miliolai, deflected out of bounds.
Missing two chances, Iheanacho quickly turns and stretches out a hand to Tang Long to apologize.
"Iheanacho, oh Iheanacho, he’s wasted another great chance!"
"If Agüero were here, at least one of these shots would have gone in!"
"The director zooms in on Bony on the bench—ugh, how dare he show his face? He’s no better than Iheanacho!"
"Relying solely on Agüero for Manchester City’s frontline isn’t nearly enough for them to progress further in the league."
"Maybe during the winter transfer window, they need to consider adding another strong forward!"
After facing two threats, Liverpool immediately steadies themselves.
Defensive midfielder Henderson lowers his hands, actively slowing the pace of the game.
Then, both sides enter the stamina bottleneck period of the first half, the match becomes more intense.
The 1:0 score remains till the end of the first half.
As soon as Clattenburg blows the whistle, Tang Long, Ranocchia, Yaya Toure, and several others rush over to question the nonexistent free-kick;
Milner, slapped by Tang Long, also charges towards Clattenburg, indicating he was tricked, at least deserving Tang Long a yellow card.
It seems that in this first half, both teams’ players are unsatisfied with Clattenburg!
Inside the Sky Sports studio, Gerrard gives a brief overview of the first half for both teams.
"Liverpool may have taken the lead, but it’s partly due to the contentious decision and Caballero’s lacking reactions; if Joe Hart had started, I believe he would have had a 90% chance to save the deflected ball."
"After unexpectedly conceding a goal, Manchester City stabilized mentally, and their subsequent two attacks were very threatening!"
"Unfortunately, whether it was Bony last round or Iheanacho today, they couldn’t link up successfully with Tang Long—only Agüero can uphold Manchester City’s attacking banner."
"I’m reminded of a few years back when Manchester City had the strongest forward lineup in the Premier League."
"Agüero, Dzeko, Balotelli, Tevez—all four had similar prowess, compared to today’s Manchester City, relying solely on Agüero to score. It’s abnormal and a severe weakness of City’s lineup."
"What Liverpool needs to do in the second half is to solidify their defense and seize the opportunity to extend their lead; if they score again, it would almost seal Manchester City’s fate for this match."
Inside the home team’s dressing room.
Philippe Coutinho, Lallana, Henderson, Mignolet, and others step forward to high-five Milner, congratulating him for scoring first.
Inside the guest team’s dressing room.
Pellegrini is furrowing his brow.
If not for the misjudged call, he was confident he could maintain the first half score, venturing a step further, perhaps with Agüero on the field, Manchester City would be leading, not Liverpool...
Pellegrini rubs his temples, pulling himself out of such unrealistic fantasies.
He sees Iheanacho, having missed two great chances, anxiously engaged with Bony as if seeking advice from this Premier League veteran.
Pellegrini shakes his head, sighing.
These two, the scheming Wolong and the ambitious Fengchu, what can come out of their talk, a goal perhaps?
The two combined don’t match up to Agüero’s half-leg.
Pellegrini now regrets deeply, if he knew this was going to happen, he certainly wouldn’t have sold Dzeko to Rome.
At this moment, Tang Long’s suggestion before the match echoes in his mind again.
"Coach, I could actually play forward!"