A large banner with the Everton team logo was hung on the south stand, and the loud team anthem echoed over Goodison Park.

As the "grand lady" among Premier League stadiums, Goodison Park can accommodate more than 40,000 fans.

The tickets for today's game were sold out early.

As the visiting team, Southampton was only allocated 3,000 away tickets and only occupied three small square areas on the north stand.

But this did not in any way dampen the enthusiasm of the saints.

The Saints fans who bought tickets also arrived at Goodison Park early.

Many Saints fans who couldn't buy tickets waited patiently outside the stadium, waiting for Gu Ran to defeat Everton, and then buy the tickets from the Crying Toffees.

Things like this have happened many times.

Of course, in addition to the 3,000 away tickets stipulated, some Saints fans disguised themselves as Everton fans and bought home team tickets on Everton's website.

Unfortunately, they could not reveal their identity as Saints fans while watching the game. Even if Gu Ran scored a goal, they could not celebrate. They could only cheer silently in their hearts, otherwise, they would be beaten into the ICU.

At any time, sitting in the home team's fan section and provoking the home team's fans is the stupidest behavior.

Apart from these Saints fans who watched the game indirectly, not all the remaining tickets were bought by Everton fans.

This is Liverpool, Everton fans and Liverpool fans all live here.

Many Liverpool fans also bought tickets for this game.

Although this game has nothing to do with Liverpool, but... Gu Ran is related to Liverpool! Being able to watch Gu Ran play football, and playing against his city rivals, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Liverpool fans!

So, Liverpool fans entered Goodison Park in an organized and disciplined manner, wearing their own jerseys, holding their own flags, and holding a large, Photoshopped photo of Gu Ran wearing Liverpool's No. 8 jersey.

Suddenly, Goodison Park was filled with shouts and curses! Liverpool fans bought team tickets, 2,000 people occupied two squares, and were right next to the south stand, in the middle of Everton fans, a red dot in the blue sea.

This is simply a provocation! But this kind of provocation is different from a personal provocation. After all, Liverpool fans are the mortal enemies of Everton fans. Moreover, Liverpool fans did not sit among Everton fans, but sat in a group, between Everton fans and Southampton fans.

Liverpool fans are half of the visiting team.

Everton fans were yelling at Liverpool fans crazily and making all kinds of international gestures.

Liverpool fans were not to be outdone and responded to the cousin with all kinds of insults.

The Saints fans were stunned watching from the sidelines, not knowing whether to stop the fight or join in.

Try to mediate the fight? I don't think I'm qualified.

The two families are originally one family, and this is a conflict between them.

Can we go together? I don't think I'm qualified.

Liverpool fans are obviously not here to help Southampton, they are here to provoke Everton.

In short, the fans in the stands started to make a fuss before the game even started.

Today's game was clearly Southampton challenging Everton away, but Liverpool seemed to have become the protagonist.

The managers of Goodison Park Stadium also hurriedly strengthened the security force and temporarily dispatched more than 100 security guards with rubber batons to prevent large-scale fights from occurring. These security guards with strong martial arts ethics could help the Toffees fans win the home game.

At times like this, the happiest people are the reporters from major media outlets. They would be even happier if the fans of the three groups could fight.

In the scouting area of ​​the main stand, Chelsea's Emenalo, Liverpool's Edwards, and Manchester City's Pratt, the three big guys arrived on time again.

Edwards seemed particularly excited today and even wore a red jacket representing Liverpool.

He treated today's match as a match between Liverpool and Everton, and he clearly came to support Liverpool's future player Gu Ran.

Chelsea's Emenalo and Manchester City's Pratt pooh-poohed Edwards' conspicuous bag behaviour.

The base colours of Chelsea and Manchester City are both blue.

Of course, they are not supporting Everton, who are also blue. They are just here to support Gu Ran, a future player of their club.

After most of the fans had entered the stadium, the candy ladies from Nobright's dessert shop put on classical festive costumes, carried baskets full of candy, and walked around the field sprinkling toffee.

This is an Everton tradition.

Whether they were Everton fans, Liverpool fans or Southampton fans, they all scrambled to grab the candy.

After all...let's put winning or losing aside for now, you have to get something for free when it's time to do so.

The atmosphere at Goodison Park suddenly became heated.

For today's match, William Hill's pre-match odds are: home win 1.27, draw 5.45, loss 7.40.

Judging from the odds of this handicap, bookmakers firmly believe that in this fourth round of the League Cup knockout match, Everton, playing at home, will be able to easily beat Southampton.

After all, Everton is a strong team in the Premier League.

The overall strength and game intensity of the Premier League teams are unmatched by the League One teams.

What's more, Everton's head coach Moyes is the coach who advocates physical strength the most among all the coaches in the Premier League.

For Southampton, a team that also likes to use physical strength to control the game, this is definitely a suppression of the big wizard over the small wizard.

Even if Southampton has a super star like Gu Ran, Everton will definitely find a way to limit Gu Ran.

Apart from Gu Ran, Lallana and Chamberlain, who are relatively famous, Southampton has no big-name stars at all.

And almost all the players on the Everton team are stars!

Especially Everton’s hotshot, “Little Rooney”, “Captain Jack”, and “British Star” Jack Rodwell, he is the hope of all England.

Therefore, the online gambling companies are more optimistic about toffee.

After careful analysis, the intelligent AI of the betting company also concluded that Everton can defeat Southampton by a large margin in this game.

However, Saints fans and some Liverpool fans boldly bet on the home team to lose, and some were even more radical, betting that Gu Ran would score in both the first and second half, and that the total number of goals would be more than 7.

In today's game, the buying was very strong, which at one point caused the on-site handicap odds to rise.

6 p.m.

The coaches of both teams attended the pre-match press conference together.

Coach Adkins took the initiative to shake hands and say hello to Everton head coach David Moyes.

David Moyes had a cold and arrogant look on his face and ignored Coach Adkins.

In terms of reputation, Moyes is a world-renowned head coach.

Coach Adkins is only slightly famous in China and has never coached a Championship or Premier League team.

Southampton is the most successful team in Coach Adkins' coaching career.

And the only fame that Coach Adkins had was basically all due to Gu Ran - even Coach Adkins himself admitted this.

Head coach Moyes is different. He was a very eye-catching player when he was a player. After retiring, he became the head coach of Preston North End, and then joined Everton in 2002 and has been in charge of the team ever since.

Moyes is a comprehensive head coach who is responsible for building a team, managing games, training new players, and buying players.

Under the leadership of Moyes, Everton has created many brilliant moments, and Moyes has also laid the foundation for Everton's physical team.

Moyes personally discovered Rooney, and even after sending Rooney to Manchester United for 50 million pounds, Moyes was able to ensure that Everton's results remained in the Champions League zone of the Premier League table.

Strictly speaking, Moyes is not a tactical master, and his tactical ideas are even a bit old-fashioned, but Moyes' training and selection system is unique and fits Everton very well.

At the start of the pre-match press conference, Coach Adkins first stated that he is a fan of David Moyes.

Coach Moyes just folded his hands over his chest and smiled.

Entering the question-and-answer session, a reporter asked coach Moyes how to deal with Southampton's super star Gu Ran in his pre-match tactical arrangements?

Moyes believes that Asian players, especially Chinese players, are generally thin and weak and lack strong confrontational qualities. So even though Gu Ran’s performance in League One is very impressive, that is definitely because he has not really experienced the intensity of confrontation in the Premier League, one of the top five leagues. Everton will teach Gu Ran his first lesson.

Coach Moyes does not think Gu Ran will pose a threat to them. Everton will easily win this game and then focus their main energy on competing for the top 6 in the Premier League. Only by entering the top 6 can they guarantee to enter the European war next season.

Coach Adkins told reporters that Everton is indeed much stronger than Southampton, and that Southampton still has many unresolved problems, such as a weak front line, a broken midfield, weak defenders, etc. But we have the super star Gu Ran, and with Gu Ran there are endless possibilities.

Moyes scoffed.

A reporter asked Coach Adkins that the souls of Everton's diehard fans are buried under the grass of Goodison Park. I heard that Chinese people are quite superstitious. Will this affect Gu Ran's performance in the game? Upon hearing this question, Adkins laughed and said, "Mr. Reporter, your question is very interesting. Before coming to Goodison Park to play, I did discuss this issue with Gu Ran privately. After all, I am the head coach. I must fully understand the psychological dynamics of my most core players before important games."

"Do you know how Gu Ran answered me?"

"Gu Ran said that in China, playing football on ashes is no different from dancing on the graves of your opponent's ancestors."

"He doesn't understand why Everton hates these dead diehard fans so much and makes them restless even after death, but no matter what, it won't affect him from dancing... What he means is that it won't affect him playing football on top of the ashes."

A loud laugh rang out in the media hall.

The pre-match press conference ended in such a friendly atmosphere.

At 7 pm, the referee team entered the venue to inspect the competition venue.

After the field inspection was completed, the away team Southampton was the first to enter the field for pre-match warm-up training.

…

(End of this chapter)