Как посылать запрос к БД в формате UTF-8?

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<form action="test.php" method="post">
Имя:
<input type= "text" name="name"><br /> 
Комментарий:
<input type= "text" name="msg"><br /> 
<input type="submit" value="Отправить запрос">
</form>
<?php
if (isset($_POST['name'])){
    $name = $_POST['name'];}
if (isset($_POST['msg'])){
    $msg = $_POST['msg'];}
$link=mysqli_connect('localhost','root','','base') or die(mysqli_error($link));
if($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']=='POST'){
    $sql = "INSERT INTO tables (name, msg) VALUE ('$name','$msg')";
    mysqli_query($link, $sql) or die (mysqli_error($link));
    header("Location: test.php");
    exit;
}
?>

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<form action="test.php" method="post">
Имя:
<input type= "text" name="name"><br /> 
Комментарий1:
<input type= "text" name="msg"><br /> 
<input type="submit" value="Отправить запрос">
</form>
<?php
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
if (isset($_POST['name'])){
    $name = $_POST['name'];}
if (isset($_POST['msg'])){
    $msg = $_POST['msg'];}
 
$link=mysqli_connect('localhost','root','587401715a','base') or die(mysqli_error($link));
$link->set_charset("utf8");
if($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']=='POST'){
    $name = utf8_encode($name);
    $msg = utf8_encode($msg);
    $sql = "INSERT INTO tables (name, msg) VALUE ('$name','$msg')";
    mysqli_query($link, $sql) or die (mysqli_error($link));
    header("Location: test.php");
    exit;
}
?>