Chapter 845: One Ball Away

On the evening of February 2, England's winter transfer window was officially announced to be closed.

In this transfer window, Manchester United did nothing except loaning Jesse Lingard, who basically did not play for the team, to West Ham United and loaning out several youth team players.

Manchester United's first game after entering February will be against Southampton Saints at home on the evening of February 2nd.

At the beginning of this season, the Saints' performance once gave people a bright feeling, but as the season progressed, due to the overall strength, Southampton quickly slipped down the standings. After 21 rounds, Southampton had 8 wins, 5 draws and 7 losses, and ranked 29th with 11 points.

Facing such a medium-strength opponent, and the team had just fought a fierce battle with Arsenal three days ago, Mourinho made some rotations in Manchester United's lineup. De Gea guarded the goal, Cancelo, Lindelof, Maguire and Luke Shaw were in the back line, Fred, Bruno and Bellingham formed the three midfielders, and Rashford, McTominay and Greenwood formed the front trident.

This is just a very ordinary league game. In addition, the epidemic still shows no signs of improvement, and the Millennium Stadium is still under restrictions, so only two thousand fans are allowed to enter to watch the game.

Although playing with a half-main lineup, Mourinho's requirement for Manchester United is still to win all three points at home.

Manchester United does have a huge advantage in the standings, but facing teams in the middle and lower reaches of the table, Manchester United cannot be careless and lose the game.

………………

No one could have imagined how smoothly the game would go for Manchester United.

From the beginning of the game, Manchester United pressed forward aggressively.

Relying on McTominay's advantage as a center forward and the team's overall pressure in the midfield and frontcourt, Southampton was soon overwhelmed.

In the first minute, McTominay intercepted the ball in the backcourt, and Jankowitz stepped on McTominay. The referee directly showed him a red card and sent him off.

Such a result means that the Saints will face a situation of playing with ten players throughout the game!

At this time, almost everyone realized that Manchester United would win a big victory again.

This is indeed the case. Southampton is far inferior to Manchester United in strength, and now they are one man down early on, which leads to the visiting team being completely crushed by Manchester United.

In the 17th minute, Rashford received the ball on the left and knocked it back, Luke Shaw followed up with a cross, Cancelo made a cross from the back post and shot, the ball hit the post and bounced into the net, Manchester United took the lead, 1:0!

When the referee blew the whistle to end the first half of the game, there was a burst of warm cheers from the Millennium Stadium.

The scoreboard showed the final score of both sides in the first half: 4:0!

International practice is that the home team goes first and the visiting team goes last.

Shortly after the start of the game, after Luke Shaw assisted Cancelo to score, Manchester United chased Southampton all the way.

In the 24th minute, Maguire launched an attack with a long pass, Luke Shaw brought the ball into the penalty area and passed it, Greenwood made a triangle pass back, and Rashford easily pushed the ball into the goal, 2:0!

In the 33rd minute, Bruno launched an attack from the top of the penalty area. Rashford made a cross from the right, and Bednarek stretched his legs in front of the goal and accidentally scored an own goal. Manchester United 3:0!

In the 39th minute, Bruno passed the ball to the left, Luke Shaw made a cross, McTominay was unguarded in front of the small penalty area, and he headed the ball into the goal, Manchester United 4:0!

Bruno had several chances in the first half, but none of them were very good, and he was always just a little bit away from scoring. This made him look helpless when he saw Cancelo, Rashford and McTominay, the three people who scored goals, as he walked off the field.

He really tried his best, but he was still a little short of scoring a goal.

He was also helpless about this.

Can you blame the Southampton players for not cooperating with him?

"It's okay, take your time, there's still the second half." Rashford comforted Bruno.

"Yes, sometimes the more anxious you are, the harder it is to score a goal." Cancelo also helped to persuade.

After scoring another goal in the match against Arsenal, Bruno's Premier League goals have reached 1, and he is very close to tying Manchester United legend Andy Cole's 185 goals.

Under such circumstances, his teammates also hoped to help him score goals and tie or even break the goal record of their predecessor Andy Cole as soon as possible, but Southampton's defense against him was indeed too tight.

Bruno patted the shoulders of his two teammates, shook his head, and walked off the field with a wry smile.

………………

Although Bruno was a little unhappy about not scoring a goal, Manchester United supporters were very satisfied with Manchester United's performance in the first half.

"Manchester United completely destroyed Southampton with their devastating attack!" said He Wei, the commentator of the game broadcast live on CCTV.

During the half-time break, Mourinho returned to the locker room in a good mood. He was very satisfied with the result and progress of the first half of the game.

"Keep playing like this in the second half," Mourinho shouted. "Don't think 4:0 is enough. Remember, the goal difference is also crucial."

In a long league, not only every point is crucial, but every goal is equally important. When it comes time to compare the goal difference to determine the ranking, sometimes one goal can determine whether it is heaven or hell.

In recent seasons, the competition in the Premier League has been very fierce. Although Manchester United did not win the championship by virtue of the advantage of goal difference in the end, Mourinho did not dare to be careless when Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea repeatedly achieved super high points of 90+.

He doesn't want his team to lose the league title to Manchester City with a goal difference advantage, as happened in the 2011-2012 season.

"After the second half started, we kept up the pressure," Mourinho said, "and completely destroyed Southampton's morale."

Although Southampton is currently ranked only in the middle of the standings, at the beginning of the season Southampton drew 3:3 with Chelsea away, drew 1:1 with Arsenal away, defeated Liverpool 1:0, and also defeated Everton and Aston Villa, who have performed strongly this season. They once topped the standings and are a Premier League powerhouse that cannot be underestimated in everyone's minds.

Their head coach Hasenhuttl also demonstrated his coaching ability in the Premier League. Under Hasenhuttl's leadership, Southampton's changes are obvious to all. There has been great progress in the style of play and the team spirit, and the fans have seen it. Therefore, after they lost 0:9 to Leicester City last season, the fans who witnessed this defeat not only did not scold the team, but expressed their support with their own actions.

They believe that this Southampton team has a strong fighting spirit, and one defeat does not represent the team's performance for the entire season, and they cannot give up what they have loved for many years because of it.

Finally, with the help of the fans, Southampton finished 11th in the standings last season, achieving their best result in nearly three years.

Therefore, even though Manchester United were leading by four goals in the first half, it cannot be assumed that they had secured victory.

You know, in the past few seasons, it was not easy for Manchester United to win against Southampton.

In the 2016-2017 season, Manchester United won 2:0 at home in two league games against Southampton, but were tied 0:0 away. In addition, they defeated Southampton 4:2 in the League Cup final.

In the following 2017-2018 season, Manchester United defeated the Saints 2:0 both at home and away.

In the 2018-2019 season, Manchester United won both games against Southampton with great difficulty, winning 3:2 away and 3:1 at home.

Last season, although Manchester United won 4:1 against Southampton away from home, they were tied 2:2 at home.

In the first leg of the two sides this season, Manchester United once again won 3:2 away from home.

These games made Mourinho realize that Southampton is a very resilient opponent.

………………

After the second half, Manchester United continued to launch a fierce attack on Southampton. The high-pressure tactics became more and more sophisticated and the effect was getting better and better.

Bruno still ran non-stop from the beginning, patiently looking for opportunities.

Facing a player like him and adopting such a style of play, it is difficult for Southampton to completely restrict him.

In the 56th minute, when Cancelo dribbled the ball to the 30-meter area in the frontcourt, he faced the tight defense of two Southampton defenders, which made it difficult for Cancelo to advance.

Bruno quickly ran to the gap and raised his hand for the ball.

Cancelo's ball came to Bruno's feet. Knowing that there was no defensive player around him, Bruno stopped and turned around.

Turning around, Bruno started quickly and dribbled the ball all the way into the penalty area.

McTominay chose to run diagonally from the center of the penalty area to the right side of the penalty area, just in time to open up the defensive player in the middle for Bruno.

But Southampton was obviously more concerned about Bruno, and two defensive players blocked the front of the penalty area.

There was an interception in front and a pursuer behind. Bruno chose to send the ball to the right side of the penalty area in an instant.

McTominay rushed over and stopped the ball. Southampton's defenders had no time to care about Bruno and all rushed towards McTominay.

Given the Scotsman's position, anyone who receives the ball can turn around and shoot directly.

The distance is not too far, but it is still very threatening.

McTominay was obviously very clear about the intention of the Southampton defender. He blocked the defender with his body, protected the ball, and then passed it diagonally back to the top of the arc.

At this time, Bruno had run out of the open space again. With no one defending him, he stopped the ball and chased into the penalty area.

Southampton goalkeeper McCarthy decisively left the goal to attack, but when he was halfway there, Bruno had already pushed the ball into the empty goal, 5:0!

"GOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!"

"Bruno finally scored a goal!"

"In the 57th minute, Bruno and center forward McTominay made a very clever frontcourt cooperation. He calmly shot the ball into the empty goal before the goalkeeper came out!"

"This is Manchester United's fifth goal in this game and Bruno's 186th league goal of the season! It is also Bruno's th Premier League goal in his career, and he is only one goal away from Andy Cole, who is third in the Premier League's historical scorer list!"