host must win

Chapter 109 Saints
On February 2003, 2, the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, the 1th round of the Premier League kicked off.Manchester United's opponent in this round is Southampton, nicknamed "Saint" on the south coast of England.

Southampton is a founding member of the Premier League. Although the best record in the past 10 seasons is only ranked 10th, most of the time they exist as a relegation team, but it is also a good result to not be relegated.

This season, Southampton has performed well and is currently ranked eighth in the league, which is Southampton's best ranking in the Premier League era.

南安普顿是一支典型的“主场龙客场虫”的球队，在本赛季已经进行的13场主场比赛里，圣徒的战绩是7胜5平1负，而12个客场，圣徒仅仅取得了3胜3平6负的战绩。

At Youcheng International St. Mary's Stadium, Southampton is one of the most difficult teams to beat among the 20 Premier League teams. Before that, they were only defeated by Liverpool here in the 24th round of the Premier League.The teams defeated by them here include Everton, Manchester City, Fulham, Arsenal, Birmingham City, Sunderland and Tottenham, Middlesbrough, Chelsea, Charlton, Blackburn and Newcastle barely took 1 point from here.

In the first round of the match between the two sides at Old Trafford, Manchester United beat their opponents 2:1. Yin Jun assisted Phil Neville to score the goal to reverse the score.

Despite Southampton's strong performance at home, Manchester United is bound to win this game.

Before the start of this round, Arsenal led Manchester United by 6 points with one more game.In the game where Manchester United played less, the opponent was the mid-lower team Birmingham City, and Manchester United had a great chance of winning.Therefore, Manchester United is still in the championship ranks, and may overtake Arsenal in the standings at any time. Of course, the premise is that Manchester United can always maintain victory and wait for Arsenal to make mistakes.

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Ferguson fielded his strongest line-up for the away game, goalkeeper Butters, back four Gary Neville, O'Shea, Ferdinand and Sylvester, Beckham, Yin Jun, Keane and Giggs formed a midfield , Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as strikers.

Among the 4 players in the midfield, captain Keane was left behind, Yin Jun served as the attacking midfielder, while Beckham and Giggs were separated on the two wings.

Manchester United, aiming to score 3 points, played very proactively in the away game. From the whistle of the game, they turned their backs and launched endless attacks towards Southampton's goal.

Yin Jun, who is the core of Manchester United's offense, was particularly active on the court.Today's league game, although his parents did not come to the away game, but they watched the live broadcast at home in Manchester. He hopes to perform well in front of his parents.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that today is the first day of the new year. After all, for Chinese people, this is the beginning of a new year. Yin Jun also hopes that he can get off to a good start on the first day of the new year.

Southampton, who are playing at home, will not let their hands go. They are currently ranked eighth in the Premier League, and they are not far behind Everton and Manchester City. Chances of war in Europe.

In the game, Southampton did take the lead in forming a very threatening shot.In the 6th minute, the home team's French midfielder Fernandez shot a high-quality long-range shot from 25 yards from the right. However, Butters was in excellent condition today. He used an acrobatic save to lift the ball over the crossbar.

However, it was Manchester United, which was even stronger, who scored the first goal.

In the 15th minute, Manchester United, who had originally stormed the left, suddenly transferred a long pass from Yin Jun to the right. Beckham picked a pass from the right to Gary Neville. Easy to break, this is his 6th goal of the season.

The commentators from all sides praised Ruud van Nistelrooy's good condition, Gary Neville's precise cross, Beckham's spiritual pass, and Yin Jun's good vision of wide-ranging transfer...

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Manchester United, which leads the score, is playing more and more freely on the field.Especially Yin Jun, the midfield commander of Manchester United, his control of the situation on the field is even more impressive.

Only 7 minutes had passed since Manchester United's last goal, and Manchester United scored another goal to expand the score through his operation in the midfield.

At that time, Southampton, who was unwilling to lose, was launching a counterattack, but Manchester United suddenly stepped up the press in the backcourt, and captain Roy Keane successfully intercepted the ball.

Keane passed the ball to Yin Jun at the first time, and Yin Jun seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, with his back facing Southampton's goal, and directly transferred Keane's pass to the right side of the front field without stopping the ball , that direction happens to be where Solskjaer is.

Manchester United played a quick counterattack. Solskjaer received a pass from Yin Jun on the right, dribbled the ball straight to the defensively empty Southampton goal, broke through to the right rib of the penalty area and passed to the goal. Giggs first Although the second shot was blocked by Southampton's Norwegian defender Lundekwan, the Welshman followed up with a clever follow-up shot, which went straight into the lower right corner of the goal.

2: 0!

Not long after 20 minutes of the game, Manchester United had already led by two goals in the away game!
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Southampton is a team with a tough style that makes everyone feel headaches. This team attaches great importance to frontcourt pressure, but because it does not have a strong top winger, it is used to making a fuss in the middle, and will frequently seek in the middle. In physical confrontation, on the one hand, relying on the iron wall to strangle the opponent in the middle lane to limit the opponent's advance, on the other hand, he is looking for a good opportunity to advance forward in the fight.

Breaking through all methods, the reason why a team like Southampton can gain a foothold in the Premier League is due to their simple, rough but efficient style of play, which even earned them the nickname "Saints", but such a team has The extremely fatal weakness is like Cheng Yaojin's three-axes. Although it can bluff people, once it encounters a stronger opponent or a schemer who knows how to avoid the important and ignore the minor, Southampton's overly vigorous way of playing football is often accompanied by Hidden danger.

Although Southampton is full of resilience in a stalemate situation, once the game trend suddenly goes against expectations, the team's ability to fight back does not seem to be as tenacious as we imagined.

It is also because of this that although Southampton is strong, there is still a threshold that has never been crossed before entering the top Premier League teams. The team still lacks the necessary stability, especially the lack of coping methods in difficult situations.Although this team looks vigorous, it is sometimes easy to break.

In layman's terms, the performance of this team often makes people dumbfounded. They can beat powerful enemies unexpectedly, or they may suffer a jaw-dropping defeat.

前者比如他们本赛季在第15轮中在主场3:2力克强大的阿森纳，后者比如上赛季第11轮在老特拉福德球场被曼联5:0屠杀。

Especially in the future, this team has twice become the background board of massacres with super big scores: they were massacred 9:0 by Leicester City and Manchester United for two consecutive seasons!

(End of this chapter)