Extraordinary coach

Foster's sudden injury made Sun Yi somewhat glad that he brought Casillas.

Otherwise, in the next two weeks of games, Sun Yi will have to face a major hidden danger in the goalkeeper position.

Now Sun Yi at least doesn't have to worry so much.

However, having said that, the pressure in Sun Yi's heart is still much greater than before.

Although Casillas still has A-level strength, he has only been in the team for a few days and has no tacit understanding with his teammates.

In the game, the tacit understanding between the goalkeeper and the defenders is also a key to the quality of defense.

This should be an addiction to using Casillas.

Unfortunately, McCarthy, another backup goalkeeper of Southampton, is only A-level.

He can indeed be used against ordinary opponents. That won't be a big problem.

But the problem is that the next game is very important and the opponent is also very strong.

Next, the game that Southampton will play is actually the semi-final of the League Cup. The opponent is Tottenham, who still wants to compete for the championship.

Although Tottenham has been defeated by Southampton since Sun Yi took over the team. But they are still very strong after all, and now this game will be held at Wembley Stadium, the home of Tottenham.

In addition, Balotelli, Pulisic and Golovin on the Southampton front line are all unusable. The current Southampton team is actually weaker than the last time they played.

Adding these factors together, after repeated consideration, Sun Yi still chose Casillas. After all, Casillas' experience and strength are there. Sun Yi believes that these factors should be able to make up for some tacit understanding problems.

Sun Yi understands Southampton's problems in this regard, and the outside world also knows it.

"Foster's injury is really bad. With his injury, Sun will have a hard time."

"Who will Sun use in the game against Tottenham? McCarthy or Casillas?"

"I think it should be McCarthy. After all, Casillas has been in the team for too short a time. The tacit understanding with the defenders is a huge problem."

"So, I believe Sun will definitely choose McCarthy as the goalkeeper."

When the day of the game came, when Casillas was seen as the starter, those who had speculated before were dumbfounded.

"It turned out that Casillas was the starter. Sun is too blind to trust Casillas, right?"

"I dare say that Casillas will definitely be a big failure in Sun's deployment today."

"If Southampton will eventually lose the game, it must be because of the goalkeeper."

"I believe Pochettino will definitely seize this weakness and attack."

"I'm afraid Pochettino can really get revenge today."

"..."

The outside world really doesn't think Casillas will start. This is actually quite normal.

When he was in Porto, Casillas was not actually the main player, he was just the second goalkeeper. He did not have much playing time.

Premier League fans have not heard of him for a long time. If Sun Yi had not brought Casillas to Southampton, many Premier League fans would have thought he had retired long ago.

The lack of a clear understanding of Casillas' current strength is the reason why everyone is not optimistic about him.

Having said that, Sun Yi was a little nervous when he really arranged for Casillas to play.

Although he saw through the system that Casillas was in good condition, he still had some doubts in his heart. After all, the opponent was Tottenham! Not a declining team like Leicester City.

Soon, the game started.

With the advantage of home court, the morale of the Tottenham team was still quite high. Most of them also believed that this time facing the Southampton team, which was short of soldiers, was a good opportunity for them to take revenge.

And Pochettino obviously saw the problems after Casillas came on the court. Therefore, the tactics he arranged were to specifically attack the connection between the goalkeeper and the defender.

This was specifically aimed at the tacit understanding between Casillas and the defender.

Seeing the Tottenham team's targeted arrangement, Sun Yi couldn't help but feel a little nervous and stressed.

Even Sun Yi was like this, so the Southampton players naturally had this concern.

This made Southampton play a little bit restrained in the early stage of the game, especially the players in the midfield and backcourt could not concentrate on supporting the frontcourt attack.

In this way, Tottenham had some advantages on the field.

This excited the fans of Tottenham.

"Southampton has become much weaker! This is a good opportunity for us."

And some people who really understand football saw the real problem.

"This is the price of sending Casillas. It prevents Southampton from attacking with all their strength without worries!"

"Maybe Sun should have corrected this problem during the halftime break."

However, it didn't take long for everyone to find out that this problem was overthought.

At the beginning of the game, Southampton was indeed found many loopholes by Tottenham because of the tacit understanding between Casillas and Van Dijk and other defenders. Thus, it created a lot of threats.

However, as Casillas gradually adapted to the rhythm of the game, his performance began to get better and better.

And he also relied on his rich game experience to make up for the lack of tacit understanding between him and his teammates.

Gradually, Van Dijk and others also had more trust in Casillas.

When the game came to the 32nd minute, Casillas made a save that made people applaud.

At that time, Tottenham Hotspur took advantage of Son Heung-min's breakthrough to create an excellent shooting opportunity for Kane.

Kane also showed the quality of a first-class striker and made a high-quality shot with a very tricky angle.

At that time, many people thought that this shot would go in nine out of ten times. However, it was miraculously saved by Casillas in the end.

Casillas's save not only destroyed Tottenham Hotspur's excellent opportunity to take the lead, but also made the entire Southampton team have enough trust in his strength.

Trust in Casillas allowed Southampton to completely let go after this. No need to worry about the instability of the defense.

This made Southampton team begin to burst out with strong fighting power.

Unfortunately, today's Tottenham Hotspur team took advantage of the home field and high morale, plus the tactical arrangements made by Pochettino after a long study, and they were able to withstand the full-fire output of Southampton.

In the end, the two teams shook hands and made peace.

It was a pity that they failed to beat Tottenham.

However, it was not bad news for Southampton. The semi-finals were a two-round home and away game. They actually had the advantage in this round.

Casillas' outstanding performance was very good news. Southampton no longer had to worry about the goalkeeper problem after Foster's injury.

After the game, Sun Yi couldn't help but praise Casillas. "Your performance was better than I thought. It was a very correct choice to buy you."