Chapter 537 The Real Battle Has Just Begun

The English media were shocked but also expressed that it was normal when Southampton beat Arsenal 4-0 at home.

Arsenal's competitiveness in the Premier League is like Wang Xiaoer's New Year celebrations, getting worse every year. This is an obvious fact.

Last season, we lost 8-2 to Manchester United away from home, which is not the score that should appear between top teams.

No matter how many reasons and excuses the fans find for this game, they cannot cover up one fact.

That is, Arsenal's strength in the Premier League is no longer on the same level as Manchester United and Manchester City!

This is an indisputable fact!

But now, Southampton beat Arsenal 4-0 at home, which once again sounded a wake-up call for the Gunners.

With the strong rise of teams like Saints and Tottenham Hotspur, if the Gunners do not change their approach in the transfer market, it may not be long before they can’t even maintain their top four position in the league!

The English media gave overwhelming praise and compliments to Southampton, which defeated the Gunners and won nine consecutive games.

Especially Toni Kroos, who was selected as the best player of the game, almost crowned him the title of the world's top defensive midfielder.

After this round of matches, Southampton has 42 points with 13 wins, 3 draws and 5 losses in the standings, ten points behind Manchester United and three points behind Manchester City, ranking third in the Premier League standings.

Following Southampton are Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Everton and West Bromwich Albion.

Among them, the Gunners have the same points as Everton and West Bromwich Albion.

It can be said that the sudden emergence of Southampton has broken the traditional top four pattern of the Premier League in one fell swoop, making almost all media people believe that the Saints' qualification for the Champions League is already a sure thing.

But in the face of media hype, the Saints seemed very rational.

Everyone in the club, from top to bottom, is aware of the devilish Christmas schedule. Although the team has carried out scientific rotations, the team's consumption is still quite large. Coupled with the injury problem, no one in Southampton dares to be careless.

Everyone knows that the real test for the team has not yet come!

Especially compared to other teams, Southampton also reached the semi-finals of the League Cup.

In January, when Southampton had just survived the test of a devilish schedule, they had to play two more games than other teams such as Manchester United and Manchester City. It is conceivable how difficult it was.

But give up?

Neither Yang Huan nor Bielsa could say such words!

This is not what Southampton should do!

After playing against Arsenal, the team immediately faced the third round of the FA Cup. Their opponent was Bournemouth from the third-level league, which is ranked second in the English League One and is quite strong.

Southampton sent out all the substitutes.

Sturridge played as a center forward, forming a front trident with Isco and Ravel Morrison.

The midfield consists of Kovacic, Pogba and Matic.

The back line consists of Alex Sandro, Nastasic, Laporte and Danilo.

The goalkeeper is Brazilian goalkeeper Julio Cesar.

Having to field an all-substitute lineup in the FA Cup was really a last resort.

Because Southampton will face Swansea in the League Cup semi-finals next.

Laudrup's team is not ambiguous at all and is quite competitive in the Premier League this season.

Before, during and after the two League Cup semi-finals, Southampton's league opponents were Aston Villa, Everton and Manchester United respectively.

In just two weeks, there are five games, and each game will face strong opponents. This is also a huge test for the Saints.

Therefore, Bielsa arranged an all-substitute lineup to play, which was somewhat forced for him to strategically give up the idea of ​​the FA Cup.

But who could have thought that this group of young players of the Saints performed so well. With Ravel Morrison assisting Sturridge's goal, they beat Bournemouth 1-0 and successfully advanced to the next round.

This made the coaching staff feel somewhat relieved. At the very least, this group of young players and substitutes in the team have shown quite good strength.

Especially the young players such as Januzaj and Kovacic who came on as substitutes were eye-catching.

You know, these guys are now training with the first team. Kovacic even jokingly took his compatriot Modric as his teacher and took the initiative to learn from him how to play football, which is of great help to the progress of young players.

After returning to Southampton, the Saints headed north to Birmingham to challenge Aston Villa away.

Aston Villa has performed poorly in the Premier League this season and is currently ranked 17th, just one step away from the relegation zone.

But even with such a team, Southampton still had a very hard time.

In the end, Ibrahimovic assisted Vidal to score at a critical moment, winning valuable three points for Southampton!

Although the Saints won this battle, they were clearly exhausted!

Also in this round, Manchester United defeated Liverpool 2-1 at home, and Manchester City beat Arsenal 2-0 away. The ranking and points gap of the top three in the league did not change at all.

But in the middle of the week, the first leg of the League Cup semi-final came, with Southampton away challenging Swansea.

Bielsa arranged a rotation and the team played evenly with Swansea away from home.

But when the game reached the 81st minute, the midfield pass was intercepted, Swansea launched a counterattack, and there was a melee in the Southampton penalty area. Varane was caught off guard and scored an own goal.

Because of this goal, Southampton lost to Swansea!

Varane also bore tremendous pressure from the outside media.

Back to the Premier League, the 23rd round will soon arrive.

Southampton hosted Everton at home.

As a result, after Bielsa's team had an overwhelming advantage on the field, they were tied by Moyes with a score of 0-0, thus coming to an end their ten-game winning streak in the league.

Coincidentally, Manchester United was tied 1-1 by Tottenham Hotspur away from home in this game, while Arsenal was unlucky and suffered three consecutive defeats, losing 1-2 to Chelsea away from home.

Manchester City beat Fulham 2-0.

As a result, the Premier League standings remain unchanged.

Southampton remains in third place with 46 points, ahead of Manchester United with 56 points and Manchester City with 51 points, followed by Chelsea with 45 points and Tottenham Hotspur with 41 points.

As for Arsenal, which suffered three consecutive defeats, they fell to sixth place, ranking behind Everton.

The intensity of the Premier League can be seen from the past few rounds.

Even a relegation team like Aston Villa has quite impressive strength.

And on the league standings, every move up a position represents extremely brutal and cruel competition.

After the 23rd round of the Premier League, Southampton once again faced Swansea, their League Cup semi-final opponent, with a rotated lineup.

As a result, the two sides tied 0-0 again.

In the end, Southampton was eliminated with a total score of 0-1.

At the weekend, the fourth round of the FA Cup was approaching, and Bielsa still played with an all-substitute lineup.

This time, even players like Kovacic and Januzaj got the starting berth.

As a result, the Saints defeated the amateur team Macclesfield 4-0 away from home. Sturridge scored an impressive hat-trick and showed a very good competitive state.

In the middle of the week, the 24th round of the Premier League arrived, and Southampton challenged Manchester United away.

The two sides fought a fierce battle at Old Trafford.

First, the away Saints took the lead with Gareth Bale breaking through De Gea's goal and scoring the first goal for Southampton. At this time, the game had just started for three minutes.

But soon, Manchester United turned the situation around, with Rooney receiving a pass from Shinji Kagawa and equalizing the score.

In the 27th minute, it was Rooney again who received Evra's assist at the critical moment and broke through Neuer's goal again, reversing the score to 2-1.

Southampton's young central defender Varane has been under media criticism and pressure from fans since he scored an own goal in the League Cup semi-final, leading to the team's elimination. This has also led to his poor performance in recent times.

In this match against Manchester United, both goals conceded were related to him!

Yang Huan was sitting in the stands of Old Trafford, feeling quite helpless.

There is no doubt about Varane's potential and talent, and even his strength is quite outstanding, but he is still a young player and lacks the self-regulation ability of mature and experienced professionals.

Unfortunately, no one can help him with this kind of thing, and he can only rely on himself to get out of the shadow.

If he can get out of it, he will be able to make further progress. If he can't, perhaps he will remain like this in the future!

In the second half, Bielsa showed his courage and determination to win. He replaced Hazard and Isco in the midfield at once, making it clear that he wanted to strengthen the attack and beat Manchester United away.

As a result, at the beginning of the second half, there was a panic in front of Manchester United's goal.

Ferguson acted decisively and immediately replaced the struggling Smalling with veteran Ferdinand to stabilize the defense.

After that, Southampton launched a fierce bombardment, and Bielsa even replaced Drogba again and used the double tower tactics.

But no matter how Southampton attacked, Manchester United's goal seemed to be precarious due to their tight defense, but it was just a little bit off.

It was not until the 83rd minute of the game, when Southampton, who had been attacking for a long time, seemed a little impatient, that Toni Kroos passed the ball back to Javi Martinez, who made a long pass and accurately found Drogba.

The Ivorian headed the ball to Ibrahimovic, and the Swede made a wonderful pass diagonally behind Manchester United's defense. Neymar penetrated Manchester United's defense like a flash of lightning, rushed into the penalty area after receiving the ball, dribbled past goalkeeper De Gea, and scored!

Two to two!

Neymar won a lot of praise and applause after the game for his winning goal at the crucial moment!

It was also this goal that helped Southampton escape from the away game and get a point!

The 24th round of the league can be regarded as the darkest round for the Premier League powerhouses.

Of the ten games, only two were decided, and the rest were all draws.

Manchester United drew with Southampton, Arsenal drew with Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea and Everton all drew!

From this point, it is not difficult to see that after enduring the devilish Christmas schedule and experiencing the difficulties in January, the consumption of all Premier League teams has reached a bottleneck.

But you have to know that the real battle for the Premier League title has just begun.

On another battlefield, European giants are also recruiting troops for the second half of the league.

During the winter transfer window, Manchester United signed African player Zaha from Crystal Palace for 15 million pounds, and then loaned Zaha to Crystal Palace.

Chelsea signed Demba Ba from Newcastle for £7.5 million.

The latter decided to transfer during the winter break after falling out with Alan Pardew.

Arsenal signed new Spanish international Monreal from Malaga for 10 million pounds at the last minute of the transfer market. The full-back is an important piece for Wenger to improve the team's flanks.

In addition, teams such as Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur have also strengthened their midfields.

The former brought in Coutinho, while the latter brought in Kenyan midfielder Wanyama from Celtic.

Tottenham Hotspur introduced Wanyama based on the advice given by Daniel Levy after consulting Yang Huan. The Southampton scout system had a very high evaluation of Wanyama, especially his physical fitness.

It’s a pity that the Saints do not currently advocate physical fitness, and Wanyama is not suitable for the Saints, so he got it cheaply to Tottenham Hotspur.

The giants in the Premier League have all taken action, either making great efforts to recruit new players or clearing out redundant players in the team.