After the start of the second half, Southampton continued to attack.

Colchester United switched to full defense.

But that doesn't help at all.

Southampton was determined to secure victory in the first round.

In the 55th minute of the game, Colchester United made a mistake on the right. Gu Ran dribbled the ball to the right and Schneiderlin took the opportunity to cut inside and run into the open space. After Gu Ran attracted at least 6 Colchester United defensive players, he kicked the ball through the crotch and passed the ball to Schneiderlin in front of the goal!

Schneiderlin took the ball and shot directly to score! Southampton 7:0 Colchester United! All the players of Colchester United were going crazy.

Yet the killing continued.

In the 68th minute of the game, Southampton forced a corner kick amidst Colchester United's tight defense.

Gu Ran took a corner kick to the back post, and the center forward Gu Li jumped high and shook his head like a lion. The football hit the shoulder of a Colchester United player, changed direction and bounced into the goal! Southampton 8:0 Colchester United! Seeing that they were about to be kicked into double digits, the Colchester United players began to make mistakes, and various rough fouls followed one after another.

Coach Adkins immediately replaced Gu Ran, Lallana and Chamberlain to ensure that they would not get injured before the final battle with Chelsea.

The time after that turned into pure garbage time, and neither side scored any new goals.

In the end, Southampton defeated Colchester United with an amazing score of 8:0 in the first round of the English Championship Southern Division final.

Next month, the two sides will play the second round at Colchester United's home ground.

But in fact, there is no suspense about the result of the Southern Division. Southampton has basically entered the final of the British Championship.

After the game, personal assistant Rick brought Gu Ran the results of the third round of the FA Cup draw:

At 3 pm on Saturday, January 29, in the fourth round of the FA Cup, Southampton will host Blackpool, the bottom team in the Premier League.

Facing an English Premier League team in the fourth round of the FA Cup, this strength is really impressive.

Fortunately, Blackpool's performance this season is very bad and they are about to be relegated to the Championship, so Blackpool's real level is probably just the upper level of the Championship, and there is still hope to play against Blackpool.

In the next few days, the Southampton team prepared for the second round of the match with Chelsea, and coach Adkins focused his main energy on how to defend intensively.

When playing against Chelsea, we can only use tactical strategies to catch them off guard, and once Chelsea reacts, they will definitely launch a crazy counterattack, so the focus of Southampton in the second round is not counterattack or defense. As long as they can hold on to a draw and prevent Chelsea from scoring no more than three away goals, then Southampton will win, and they will also tie the club's highest record in history and reach the League Cup final.

During this period, the whole team worked together as one, and even center forwards like Gourlay and Connolly actively trained in defense.

At 3 pm on Saturday, January 22, the 27th round of the English League One, Southampton's away challenge against Brentford began.

Coach Adkins only sent out a small number of main players, as most of the main players stayed at home for training.

As the core of the team, Gu Ran naturally stayed at home to train and prepare for the game.

Brentford was also well aware that Colchester United was beaten 8:0 in revenge, so after the start of the game, Brentford did not launch a fierce attack, but focused on defense.

The two sides played in a relatively harmonious manner, just like a training match.

In the end, Brentford tied Southampton 2:2, the two sides shook hands and made peace, each getting one point.

After the game, Southampton's main players did not take a holiday, but continued their closed training at Staplewood.

Finally, on January 25, the second leg of the League Cup semi-final arrived.

Chelsea's Blues fans were also waiting outside St. Mary's Stadium early for the game to start.

Southampton fans arrived earlier than the Blues fans. Almost all Southampton fans wanted to witness with their own eyes Gu Ran leading their team to the League Cup final for the second time in history.

In the morning, the Southampton team conducted warm-up adaptation training on the field in advance.

In the afternoon, Chelsea conducted warm-up adaptation training on the field.

At 5 pm, the lights at St. Mary's Stadium were turned on and fans began to enter.

The attendance at St. Mary's Stadium exploded today. Not only was the stadium full, but the outside of the stadium was also filled with Saints and Blues fans who were unable to buy tickets.

There was a near clash between fans of both teams, but fortunately the Southampton club deployed a large number of security forces today to ensure that order was basically maintained.

At 7:45 in the evening, with the referee's whistle, the second round between Southampton and Chelsea officially began!

Chelsea's formation and lineup today have not changed much from the previous game. Ancelotti still continues to trust the infant Torres and lets Torres serve as the center of the trident.

Malouda and Anelka are still the left and right wingers of the trident respectively.

The inverted triangle of midfield is still composed of Lampard, Ramires and Essien, three world-class B2B midfielders.

The left back is still the scumbag Ashley Cole, and the right back is still the underrated world-class defender Ivanovic.

The two central defenders are the world-class Terry and the nearly world-class David Luiz.

The goalkeeper is still Cech.

This kind of deployment is also Ancelotti's style - unless there are special circumstances, Ancelotti likes to use a lineup until death.

This is also a relatively conservative approach. After all, the coordination and cooperation between familiar lineups is very stable.

Today, Southampton made relatively big adjustments.

Southampton's formation changed from the previous 442 to 4231 - four defenders, two defensive midfielders, three central midfielders and one forward.

Lallana is the striker.

Veteran forwards like Gurley and Connelly all sat on the bench.

Coach Adkins' tactical thinking for this game is very clear, that is, defense! Defense! Defense again! It doesn't make much sense to have a center forward, not to mention that the reason why Southampton has come this far is definitely not due to the forward and center forward's forward ability.

Although Lallana is pushed into the striker position, he can actually play as an attacking midfielder/central midfielder. His defensive ability is not too bad for a frontcourt player. At critical moments, Lallana can retreat to the midfield and line up with the three midfielders to form a dense defensive formation of four midfielders.

Is it embarrassing to park the bus against Chelsea?

There's no shame in that, because this is the English League One team Southampton.

…

(End of this chapter)