Manchester City and Chelsea directly announced that they could offer the lowest buyout fee and directly contacted Gu Ran's agent Mendes.

Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal also gave their sincere double-teaming.

Tottenham also made inquiries about Gu Ran.

Not only the Premier League giants, but also Real Madrid and Barcelona of La Liga have begun to pay attention to Gu Ran's performance. Bayern of the Bundesliga and AC Milan of Serie A have all made offers to Gu Ran.

The reason why Real Madrid made the offer was because of the recommendation of Cristiano Ronaldo. Cristiano Ronaldo is currently the undisputed number one star of Real Madrid. Ronaldo's words are naturally very important to Real Madrid. After Real Madrid's current coach Mourinho watched Gu Ran's highlights, he immediately decided to introduce Gu Ran at any cost.

The reason why Barcelona made the offer, in addition to Gu Ran's beast-like performance as a defensive midfielder, is more because Barcelona does not want Real Madrid to get a strong player like Gu Ran. As sworn rivals at the club level, Barcelona will have to get involved in whatever Real Madrid wants, whether they want it or not.

The reason why Bayern Munich of the Bundesliga wants Gu Ran is purely because they are really optimistic about Gu Ran and the strong commercial potential of Chinese players in the Bundesliga.

The main reason why AC Milan wanted Gu Ran was because of Beckham's strong recommendation.

For a time, Gu Ran became a super rookie that European giants were competing for.

But Gu Ran didn't care about it at all.

Gu Ran was very determined in his heart that he wanted to at least send Southampton to the Premier League before transferring away.

After all, if things continue like this, Southampton will soon become his own club, and sending his own club to the Premier League can also be considered his own business.

Of course, with Southampton's strength, it is impossible to gain a foothold in the Champions League, so after playing in the Europa League, if they want to play in the Champions League, they really have to go to a real top club.

Before that, Gu Ran could also take the opportunity to improve himself, lay a solid foundation, and grow into a world-class star who can truly compete with Messi and Ronaldo! At Gu Ran's instruction, agent Mendes declined all offers!

At 3 pm on Saturday, January 1st, the 24th round of the English League One began, with Southampton away challenging Rochdale.

Gu Ran, who was suspended in the last game due to accumulating 5 yellow cards, started in this game and wore the captain's armband again.

Knowing that Gu Ran would not transfer away, the overall morale of the Southampton team was very high.

At the beginning of the first half, Southampton launched a series of attacks, and Rochdale's defense was repeatedly in desperate situations.

In the 14th minute of the first half, left midfielder Holmes broke through and made a triangle pass. Gu Ran inserted the ball from the back row with a violent aesthetic, jumped up from the top of the penalty area, and headed the ball high up! Rochdale's goalkeeper was stunned and stood there!

The ball went in! On the first day of 2011, Gu Ran scored the first goal for Southampton, and Southampton took the lead by one goal! Then, in the 21st minute, Gu Ran dribbled the ball through the middle, dribbled past 6 players, and shot directly from the edge of the penalty area!

The score was rewritten again!

Rochdale 0:2 Southampton! In the 37th minute, Southampton got a corner kick after continuous attacks. Gu Ran kicked the ball close to the goal with a crescent-shaped scimitar. Forward Gu Li jumped high and headed the ball into the goal! Rochdale 0:3 Southampton! Rochdale, playing at home, was clearly well prepared, but they just couldn't limit Gu Ran's ability!

Before the end of the first half, Gu Ran broke through the middle again, and then took a long shot directly from outside the penalty area! Rochdale's goalkeeper was helpless again!

Rochdale 0:4 Southampton! Gu Ran is worthy of being called the "king outside the penalty area". Gu Ran's shooting range is within the 30-meter range in the front field, and his success rate is extremely high! The score between the two sides in the first half is temporarily fixed at 0:4. In the second half, the two sides changed sides and Gu Ran continued to show his strength.

Rochdale switched to full defense and the situation became a little tense for a while.

But Southampton relied on Gu Ran's one-on-one explosion and scored three goals in the second half! When the referee blew the whistle to end the game, the game was frozen at Rochdale 0:7 Southampton! Rochdale, which was originally ranked 10th in the English League One, was ruthlessly pressed to the ground and rubbed repeatedly by Gu Ran! After the game, almost all the players of Rochdale were kicked and cried.

Then, three days later, at 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday, January 3, the 25th round of the English League One, Southampton's away challenge against Notts County began.

In this game, Coach Adkins once again fielded half of the main players and let Gu Ran play the full 70 minutes.

This is mainly to maintain Gu Ran's competitive state, while also maintaining the physical fitness of Southampton's main players in preparation for the upcoming League Cup semi-final first leg against Chelsea.

In the match against Notts County, Southampton played very relaxed. Although half of the players were on the field, they basically gave up the high-pressure strategy and physical confrontation to ensure that the main players would not be injured.

In the end, Gu Ran completed the hat trick easily.

However, after Gu Ran was substituted, Nottingham Forest scored two goals through counterattacks and defeated Southampton, which had only half of its main players, with a total score of 4:3.

Nottingham Forest is currently ranked 19th in League One. Losing to a weak team like Notts County seems to be a bad thing, but for Southampton's overall points situation, this is the best choice. Southampton is still far ahead of the top League One teams.

On Saturday, January 8, the third round of the FA Cup began with Southampton hosting Rotherham, the top-ranked team in English League Two.

The strength of the two teams is very different, and this is Southampton's home court, so there is no suspense in this knockout match itself.

Coach Adkins sent out almost all the main players in order to keep them in good competitive form.

Rotherham could actually play a head-on game with Southampton, after all, Southampton won't press throughout the entire court. But Rotherham are afraid, as Southampton have beaten all the top teams in League One and made it to the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup, being compared with Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham. They have also easily beaten mid- and lower-level teams in League One with scores of 5:0, 6:0 and 7:0. Therefore, it is obvious that we, Southampton, will not defend against you, and Rotherham doesn't believe it.

What's more, the schedule of the English League Two teams is also very tight, and Rotherham does not want to waste their energy on the FA Cup knockout rounds where they have no chance of breaking through.

So at the beginning of the first half, Southampton's defense was very loose, but Rotherham didn't even attack, they just played like a dead end.

As a result, Southampton easily scored two goals in a row thanks to the set pieces created by Gu Ran.

In the second half, Rotherham United continued to perform poorly.

Southampton launched a wave of attacks and scored three goals in a row before the 70th minute, making the total score 5:0.

After 70 minutes, coach Adkins substituted three main players, Gu Ran, Lallana and Chamberlain, for rest.

In the end, Southampton eliminated Rotherham, the first place in English League Two, 5:0 without any suspense.

Next, the entire Southampton team will have a day off.

Coach Adkins requires the main players to get enough sleep for 12 hours during the holidays, maintain a normal food intake, and not be allowed to go to bars, party, drink, flirt, show affection, or even play games.

Any behavior that may cause injury should not be done.

Because, three days later, it will be the first round of the League Cup semi-finals!

On January 10, the players returned to Staplewood training ground after a day off.

Coach Adkins led the players to start high-intensity confrontation training and tactical explanations.

On January 11, the players conducted recovery training and more specific man-marking and strangulation tactics arrangements.

On January 12, Southampton's main players gathered early and took the Southampton team bus to Stamford Bridge in west London.

There are many teams in London, but according to the region, they can be roughly divided into West District teams and North District teams and South District teams.

The West End of London is a typical wealthy area, while the North and South Ends are industrial areas.

This also determines the different styles of teams in the same city.

Chelsea, Fulham, Queens Park Rangers, a Championship team that has won a League Cup, and Brentford, which is currently in League One, are all teams in West London.

The two giants in North London are Arsenal, a typical working-class team, and Tottenham, a team dominated by the middle class.

In addition, West Ham United is also a team mainly composed of working-class people in the north.

British football clubs all have their own unique class culture. Although this sounds very classical, class culture is closely related to football culture.

There is no doubt that Chelsea in 2010 was definitely the peak era of the Blues.

Chelsea Football Club was founded in March 1905 and cannot be considered an early club.

Moreover, unlike all other clubs, which first had a team and then a football stadium, Chelsea had a football stadium for more than a year before it had the Chelsea football team.

Mills, the founder of Chelsea, built a team because he couldn't sell the stadium.

In fact, Mills did not want to build a team at that time, because it was too troublesome to create a team, and the teams of that era relied entirely on ticket revenue. If they did not have good results, it would be easy for them to fall into debt due to poor performance. As a businessman, Mills did not want to take the risk of building a team at all. He just wanted the existing local Fulham team to come to his stadium to play.

However, Fulham eventually chose Craven Cottage as their home ground.

Mills, who was unable to sell the stadium, even decided to tear it down and build a residential community instead.

But, ultimately, Mills changed his decision.

And it all started with a dog.

The origin of Manchester United is related to a dog, and the origin of Chelsea is also related to a dog.

...(End of this chapter)