Especially that Rudiger, Adkins felt a headache just looking at him.

However, after three consecutive intra-team matches, these new players not only did not fail to perform well, but they were able to adapt very quickly, often forcing the old players of Southampton to gasp for breath.

The loaned Sturridge, Henderson, and the early Mikel are even more powerful.

Combined with Gu Ran's growth during this period, the entire Southampton team has expanded in strength at almost the speed of light.

On August 5, after three team training matches, Coach Adkins had already determined the starting lineup and substitute list for the Community Shield match against Manchester United.

On August 6, the Southampton team went to London, checked into the hotel in advance, and conducted recovery training.

Manchester United also arrived at Wembley in London early, looking forward to avenging their loss in the FA Cup final in the Community Shield.

Last season, Manchester United lost the Carabao Cup trophy and the FA Cup trophy, and was also defeated 3:2 by Barcelona, ​​which has Messi, in the Champions League and lost the Champions League title. Fortunately, in the last two rounds of the Premier League, Manchester United won the Premier League title thanks to the outstanding performance of Berbatov.

This means that if Manchester United can successfully take revenge in the Community Shield, then Manchester United can win the double championship.

If Southampton can beat Manchester United for the second time, then Southampton will complete an unprecedented five championships - although the composition of this five championships is not of high quality, it is only a five-championship consisting of the English League One championship, the English Championship championship, etc., but winning five championships in one season is definitely the highest achievement in the history of Southampton Club.

The Community Shield is not that valuable compared to other competitions such as the FA Cup and the Premier League.

Firstly, the Community Shield does not have an elimination system. The teams eligible to participate in the competition are the FA Cup champion and the Premier League champion. If the FA Cup champion and the Premier League champion are the same team, then the Premier League runner-up will be promoted to the Community Shield to compete.

From the perspective of the competition system, the Community Shield is not very strict.

The predecessor of the Community Shield was actually just a charity match, which was used to attract traffic before the start of the new season of England's top league, which is equivalent to the Super Cup in other countries.

So in the beginning of the Community Shield, everyone was just playing casually and it was a show, but later on, the event became more serious, it was no longer a charity show, but a real competition, so the value of the Community Shield is much higher than when it was first created.

Any team that can enter the Community Shield is undoubtedly a strong team.

The confrontation between strong teams is often the most exciting and the most anticipated.

In this year's Community Shield, Southampton, as the biggest dark horse, made a brilliant appearance and attracted a lot of attention.

Not only did English media reporters wait outside Wembley Stadium and the hotel for interviews, but media reporters from other countries also came to Wembley, ready to witness the new Southampton team's debut with their own eyes.

Morning of August 7th.

After the Southampton team had breakfast in the hotel, coach Adkins gave them a brief tactical meeting. Then the entire Southampton team took a bus to Wembley Stadium for the final field adaptation training.

Sturridge, Henderson, Mane, Salah, Van Dijk and Rudiger all stood on the turf of Wembley Stadium for the first time and they were all very excited.

At 12:30 in the afternoon, 90,000 fans entered the stadium.

Before the players entered the field, players from both teams had already started singing songs to humiliate each other, and the atmosphere became extremely heated.

The atmosphere reached its peak when players from both teams came on the field to warm up.

After the warm-up, players from both teams temporarily left the field and made final preparations in the locker room.

The new Southampton team formed a circle and, led by captain Davis, shouted the slogan that Southampton must win.

Davis is still the captain of Southampton in the new season, and after the vice-captain Walton retired, Gu Ran was selected as the vice-captain.

Of course, with Gu Ran's ability and influence, there would be no problem for him to be the captain of the Southampton team, but Gu Ran had no intention of taking away Davis's captaincy.

Davis performed very well last season. He was the third best player in the team after Gu Ran and Lallana. In addition, Davis is popular in the team, so it is very suitable for Davis to continue to be the captain.

Gu Ran is already a mysterious boss, so naturally he doesn't look down on the position of captain.

After the cheering, the Southampton team lined up and entered the player tunnel.

At 2:45, players from both teams, pulling their caddies, officially entered the stadium amid the crazy cheers of 90,000 fans.

The captains of both teams came to the referee to choose sides. Vidic guessed correctly and won the priority right to choose sides for Manchester United, while Davis won the priority right to kick-off for Southampton.

Amid the cheers of 90,000 fans, players from both teams returned to their respective halves, waiting for the game to officially begin.

Southampton is the home team today and they are wearing their classic red and white jerseys.

Manchester United, who were drawn as the visiting team, can only wear their blue and black horizontal striped away jersey.

It is relatively rare to see this kind of jersey appear in competitions such as the Community Shield.

Manchester United's formation today is still the 442 with both wings flying together that they used when they last played against Southampton, but there are some changes in the starting lineup.

The forwards are Rooney and the handsome Berbatov.

Berbatov's position is a little forward than Rooney, which is a bit like 4411, but it cannot be regarded as a complete 4411. After all, Berbatov is known as the "laziest" striker. He rarely runs on the field and rarely retreats, so it looks more like Berbatov is being lazy.

But in fact, this is exactly Berbatov's style of play.

Berbatov is a player with his own distinctive characteristics. He doesn't run much on the field, but as long as Berbatov runs, it means he smells the scent of "blood", and as long as this elegant vampire smells the scent of blood, he is not far from scoring.

...(End of this chapter)