Southampton will challenge Lech Poznan away.

The last time these two teams met, Lech Poznan was badly beaten by Southampton with a large score. This time, Lech Poznan changed its fierce and aggressive style of play and switched to full-scale defense in order to save face in front of its hometown folks.

In fact, Lech Poznan's defensive strategy is not very good, but their players are all tall and strong Eastern European players with strong physical fitness and strong confrontation ability. Southampton also came from afar to fight and was not well prepared for the cold weather in Poland in December.

Both teams played rather dully in the first half. In order to ensure that the entire team was not injured, Coach Adkins kept asking the players on the sidelines to reduce physical confrontation and pass the ball more.

But even so, Southampton's Henderson was knocked to the ground by a Lech Poznan player during the attack, causing a slight fracture of his arm and he will not be able to play for at least a month.

Coach Adkins is sure that what he fears will come true.

Fortunately, Southampton's bench depth is still strong enough, and Schneiderlin was immediately substituted.

In the first half, the two sides were tied at 0:0. Gu Ran had several brilliant dribbles and runs, but Salah and Sturridge were in mediocre form and failed to seize the opportunities.

The two teams changed sides in the second half.

Lech Poznan was a little slack physically, Gu Ran immediately seized the opportunity, dribbled the ball straight into the goal from the backcourt, and devoured five midfielders and defenders of Lech Poznan. Then Matthews lowered his shoulder and shook off two defenders who were defending and intercepting, completing the feat of passing seven players. Then he made a volley in the penalty area, changing the score to Lech Poznan 0:1 Southampton.

Almost all the players of Lech Poznan collapsed to the ground in despair. They tried their best to defend Gu Ran, but they were unable to do so.

After this goal, the players of Southampton were activated one after another.

Southampton began to attack with all their might and Lech Poznan was soon unable to resist.

In the 77th minute, Salah received a super through pass from Gu Ran who devoured four defensive players. He didn't even stop the ball, but directly shot it into the goal.

Then, in the 83rd minute, Sturridge received Gu Ran's precise long pass and scored in one fell swoop facing a half-empty goal - unfortunately, the linesman raised his flag, indicating that the goal was invalid.

In the 89th minute, Gu Ran was tripped to the ground while dribbling the ball back and forth in the middle to pull the iron defense of Lech Poznan. The referee decisively awarded a free kick.

Gu Ran's crescent-shaped kick and elevator ball changed the score to Lech Poznan 0:3 Southampton.

After the injury time, the referee blew the whistle to end the game, and the score was fixed at Lech Poznan 0:3 Southampton.

After the fifth round of the Europa League Group G, Southampton topped Group G with 15 points. Atletico Madrid also defeated Lille and followed closely with 12 points. As for Lech Poznan and Lille, they still had 1 point and were not even considered side dishes.

With such points, even if Southampton beat Atletico Madrid, they will definitely be the first in the group. Even if they are tied by Atletico Madrid, they will still be the first in the group in total points. Even if they lose to Atletico Madrid, as long as the score difference is not a double-digit score, Atletico Madrid will not have a goal difference advantage.

So, basically, Southampton's position as the first in Group G has been established.

This also made the Southampton club executives and Southampton fans excited. After all, the last time Southampton entered the Europa League finals was more than 30 years ago.

The price of Southampton Football Club in the stock market also rose rapidly. Small retail shareholders holding Southampton shares were reluctant to sell this golden goose that could only lay golden eggs, which further pushed the stock price up.

On December 4th, the Championship match day began, with Southampton challenging Norwich away.

Adkins sent out half of the main players, and Gu Ran was forced to rest.

After that, although Southampton fought back with all their might, Norwich played in an orderly manner. At the end of the first half, Southampton was seized by Norwich and scored a goal.

In the second half, Norwich, leading by two goals, began to adopt a defensive strategy.

Southampton lacked Gu Ran's sharpness, and their several fierce attacks did not achieve any results, and they even almost lost the ball again.

Fortunately, Van Dijk was quite strong and made several key interceptions, which prevented the score from being widened.

But that's all Southampton can do.

Forwards such as Mane and Lallana were not in hot form today, and Ward-Prowse's midfield did not play a good connecting role.

In the end, Southampton lost to Norwich away from home with a score of two goals behind.

Although they lost this game, it did not affect Southampton's ranking in the Championship. Southampton is still ranked first in the Championship and is leading by a huge margin.

On December 7, the Championship match day, Southampton returned to their home ground to face Swansea.

This time, in front of his hometown folks, Adkins sent out his entire main lineup.

The unfortunate Swansea Goose was pinned down and rubbed repeatedly by the villains led by Gu Ran.

In the end, Southampton took 3 points from Swansea with a score of 13:0.

Therefore, the most terrifying team is not the Southampton team with Gu Ran, but the Southampton team led by Gu Ran who indiscriminately seeks revenge after losing.

On December 10th, the Championship match day, Southampton faced another unlucky team, Blackpool, at home.

Blackpool was originally a Premier League team, but in the last season it was at the bottom of the points table and thus slipped to the Championship. As the saying goes, a lean camel is bigger than a horse, so Blackpool is still very strong in the Championship.

So, Blackpool is better than Swansea, losing only 9 goals to Southampton in one game and not being beaten by Southampton by double digits.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that Coach Adkins substituted Gu Ran, who was playing like crazy and uncontrollably, in the 75th minute.

As soon as the game ended, Blackpool's head coach shook hands with coach Adkins with tears of gratitude and even almost knelt down to kowtow to him.

On December 15, the final round of the Europa League Group G resumed, with Southampton playing at home against Atletico Madrid.

At this time, after more than a dozen games of running-in, Atletico Madrid has been made more stable by Simeone, and the 442 defensive counterattack formation strategy is also gradually improving.

After a series of games, Southampton's young players have grown rapidly.

...(End of this chapter)