The last time Southampton was defeated at Norwich's home ground with a lineup of half substitutes, it was also Southampton's first defeat since entering the Championship. In this FA Cup knockout round, Southampton will naturally not miss this good opportunity for revenge.

Coach Adkins sent out his entire starting lineup.

At the beginning of the game, Gu Ran used his personal speed to attack Norwich's six defensive players from the backcourt, and broke Norwich's formation into pieces, leaving them defenseless. Then, Gu Ran seized the opportunity and passed the ball directly to Sturridge in the penalty area with a perfect kick.

Sturridge lived up to expectations and kicked the ball into Norwich's goal.

The score on the big screen immediately changed to Norwich 0:1 Southampton.

Southampton got off to a fantastic start right at the start.

Then, in the 9th minute of the game, Gu Ran broke through with the ball on the left side again. Chamberlain and Gu Ran made two wonderful two-pass cooperations in a row. Then Gu Ran and Chamberlain switched positions and dribbled the ball to the bottom.

Such a strange tactic caught Norwich's defenders off guard.

They all thought that Gu Ran should be the one receiving the ball in the middle and Chamberlain should be the one making the cross from the bottom, but Gu Ran's change of position completely threw Norwich's defense into chaos.

After going down the flank, Gu Ran did not pass the ball back, because most of Norwich's main defensive players were concentrated in the middle, and the left side where he was was actually a weak area.

Gu Ran took a step back and turned, shaking off the full-back who was marking him, and dribbled the ball directly into the small penalty area along the bottom line.

When the Norwich goalkeeper saw what was happening, he immediately rushed out to block Gu Ran at a small angle.

Gu Ran calmly used a pendulum move to dribble past the opponent, knocking the Norwich goalkeeper to the ground, and then easily shot the ball into the goal from a small angle!

The ball went in! This goal was brilliant! Not only was the exchange of positions beautiful, but the close-range penetration was also explosive! In just ten minutes at the start, Norwich's defense was torn apart twice by Gu Ran!

Norwich players began to regret that they should not have beaten Southampton without Gu Ran.

The game continued and Southampton continued to attack frantically under the leadership of Gu Ran.

Norwich had no ability to fight back at all.

In the 15th minute, Van Dijk intercepted the ball on the wing and sent the ball to Gu Ran with a precise long pass. After receiving the ball, Gu Ran immediately used his speed to eat the Norwich midfielder who double-teamed him, and then sent the ball to Salah's feet.

Salah kicked the ball calmly without being pressed, but unfortunately, Salah was in poor condition and the ball hit the edge of the goal frame and bounced out of the bottom line.

It doesn’t matter if you’re not in good shape. With Gu Ran here, no matter how bad the shape is or how big the goal drought is, it’s not a problem.

Then in the 18th minute, Gu Ran dribbled horizontally in the midfield of Norwich and attracted double-teaming from at least six Norwich players. With his strong personal ability, Gu Ran withstood the close confrontation with three of them, protected the ball with his feet, and calmly passed the ball to Salah who was coming up the side.

Salah volleyed again without being marked.

This time, the football hit the goal!

The score on the big screen immediately changed to Norwich 0:3 Southampton.

Next, Southampton team blossomed under Gu Ran's coordination. In the 26th minute, Chamberlain scored a goal. In the 39th minute, Sturridge scored twice. In the 45th minute of injury time, Lallana scored a goal.

At the end of the first half, Southampton was already leading Norwich by 7 goals.

If they could surrender, they would have surrendered long ago.

Unfortunately, this is a football game and surrender is not an option.

In the second half, Southampton still did not put down their weapons.

Norwich started to play badly, their defensive moves became more and more exaggerated, their hands and feet were not aimed at the ball, but at the people.

Southampton's Sturridge was hit in the eye by the opponent during a scramble.

The two sides almost came to blows.

Coach Adkins originally wanted to massacre Norwich by double digits, but when he saw that the game was getting out of control, he made emergency substitutions, replacing key players such as Gu Ran, Mikel Lallana and others to prevent them from getting injured.

After all, the victory of this game has been decided, and there will be more important games to come.

After Gu Ran and others were substituted, Southampton scored another goal before the end of the game. Norwich, relying on the home advantage, used diving to trick a penalty kick and scored it, saving some face in the score.

In the end, in the third round of the FA, Southampton eliminated the Championship powerhouse Norwich with a score of 8:1.

On January 10th, the highlight is here.

In the first round of the Carabao Cup semi-finals, Southampton's away challenge to Premier League giants Arsenal has begun.

The game attracted a large number of domestic and foreign news media, as well as a large number of scouts and celebrities to watch the game at the Emirates Stadium.

Southampton is the defending champion of the English League Cup, and Arsenal has also performed very strongly this season.

The two strong teams met early in the semi-finals. I don’t know whether it was Southampton’s misfortune or Arsenal’s misfortune.

At the pre-match press conference, Arsenal head coach Wenger praised Gu Ran generously, claiming that he had already taken a liking to Gu Ran before he joined Southampton to play in English Football League One. If the bank had not been closed at the time, he would have been able to get a loan. He really almost signed Gu Ran at that time.

Coach Adkins warned coach Wenger at the press conference not to target their boss.

After the game started, Arsenal still used their best passing and cutting flow and played on the ground.

Southampton adopted a 442 defensive counterattack strategy.

Salah is at the front as the center forward, Lallana retreats half a position to be the second striker/central midfielder/attack midfielder, Chamberlain goes on the left, Henderson who has returned from injury goes on the right, Gu Ran and Mikel sit in the middle as defensive midfielders, the left back is the young Luke Shaw, the right back is the young Van Dijk, the two central defenders are one old and one young, the older one is Jaidi and the younger one is Rudiger, and the goalkeeper is the steady captain Davis.

This lineup is basically Southampton's full main lineup at this stage. This lineup is quite young, especially the back line, which is almost all young players. But don't underestimate their youth, their defensive and assist abilities are very strong.

Southampton is truly a star-making factory as it has such a group of young players.

...(End of this chapter)