Chapter 20: Touching the Conscience

"It's too dangerous, I always feel like something wasn't right today, but I can't tell what's wrong." Several teammates on the bench whispered.

Tianyi also found that in the face of Southampton's solid defense, Tottenham always had a feeling that they couldn't do it. And the other party comes to kick from time to time, and it can always pose a threat.

The magic bird frowned, pacing back and forth on the sidelines, apparently thinking of ways to change.

Such a scene, if he used to take Chelsea and Real Madrid, I am afraid that he would have been furious a long time ago.

And now more than ten years have passed, and things have backfired again and again, and his unruly character has gradually smoothed out, and he has become more rational.

Everyone can see that the current Tottenham style of play is really a bit monotonous, if the personnel are neat, even if they encounter a super strong team, they dare to pull their wrists, once several main players are injured or in poor condition, the team will fall into the quagmire of lack of offensive skills and full of holes in defense.

At present, it seems that the problem in the midfield is more prominent, Ali's running is a little sluggish, and Winks is also closely guarded by the opponent, so the task of delivering cannonballs forward can only be completed by the back players, the young Ndombele is not afraid of hard against hard bodies, but in the face of an old fox like Sean Lang, how to play how awkward.

As the clock progressed, the pace of the game began to pick up gradually.

In the 26th minute, Southampton's right midfielder, the player hoisted the ball high into the penalty area, and the Tottenham defender pushed the ball out of the penalty area, but there was an obvious leak in front of the penalty area, and the players who played in the back did not have time to fill the position, Southampton midfielder Jenepo met the ball on the edge of the penalty area is a left-footed volley, only to see that the ball was flat and fast, sticking to the lawn and going straight to the lower right corner of the Tottenham goal.

Lloris reacted quickly as he pounced on his right side with both feet, only to hear a thud and the ball hit the outside edge of the left-hand post and bounced off the pitch, Tottenham escaped, while the referee signalled it was a corner, too dangerous!

Had it not been for Lloris's fingertips touching the ball and changing its trajectory, Tottenham would have fallen behind by this time.

In the first half, in less than half an hour, Lloris had already made three saves, especially the one just now, when he blocked the ball and hit the post due to inertia, but fortunately there was not much damage.

Southampton drove a corner, Tottenham cleared in front of goal, the ball came to the feet of another midfielder, Doherty, he quickly advanced forward after getting the ball, and passed a long pass to the right before the Southampton player stepped up, and Lucas Jr., who was inserted at high speed on the right, waited for the ball to bounce to the ground, sent a cross directly to the middle, and the midfielder Winks who was inserted from behind directly faced the goalkeeper to push the goal.

The goal was scored cleanly, but before the Tottenham players could celebrate, the referee's whistle blew again.

The linesman on the right side of the pitch had raised the flag high and signalled it to be offside.

Tottenham's bench all stood up, and the opponent found the opportunity to score, and finally had an effective quick counterattack, but the goal was blown away, and the home fans burst into warm applause to the referee, and finally the referee ruled through the VAR that although the player who scored the goal, Winks was not offside, but Lucas Jr. was offside at the moment of Doherty's pass, and the goal was still ruled invalid.

This time Tottenham did not benefit from the VAR decision, which is actually quite normal.

From the moment VAR was applied to the Premier League, it was considered a savior by all teams, in the past, the 'blind whistle' in the Premier League was rampant, penalties were often arbitrarily awarded, red and yellow cards were often indistinguishable, and many games were ruthlessly killed because of the referee's will.

And today's VAR is obviously not very friendly to the Tottenham team, although the goal caused by a handball of the opponent was blown away, but Tottenham's only two attacks in the first half were ruled offside by VAR, especially the offside of Lucas Jr. later, it can be said that it is 'body hair offside', blowing or not blowing, all in the referee's thoughts.

What's more critical is that Tottenham, which has the advantage of overall strength, has been interrupted by the rhythm of the game, impacting the psychological defense again and again, and the fluency of the game has been greatly reduced.

"How are you going to kick this?" Tottenham players are constantly protesting.

"You're just blind! My grandma can see better than you do. Ali shouted at the referee.

The referee didn't allow him to challenge his authority, rushed up to Ali and sent the Topaz card directly, and his teammates quickly rushed to persuade Ali to stop, if the situation escalated again, Ali was afraid that he would face the severe punishment of being expelled from the game and banned.

The magic bird on the sidelines smiled wryly, maybe this is the away game.

"What kind of person is he, it's darker than the black whistle of the Chinese Super League!" Tianyi couldn't help but sigh.

Originally, he thought that the domestic league was dark enough, and there were a few well-known blind referees, and several foreign referees who came later seemed to have been assimilated, but he didn't expect that the world's first league was also blind!

He really wanted to be like a coach in the Chinese Super League, patting his chest and questioning the referee, "Referee, touch your conscience..."

But it didn't help, and Tottenham's beautiful defensive counter-attack was ruthlessly snuffed out in the end.

The players on the pitch had obviously taken a major blow, with concentration dropping and just five minutes later, Southampton had dealt Tottenham another fatal blow.

In the 32nd minute, Walker Peters made a long pass from the backfield, and the leading scorer Ings quickly stepped forward, and the two central defenders next to him, Dier and Sanchez, made mistakes in the defense, leaving enough space for Ings.

And Ings received the long pass from the backfield and unloaded the ball very steadily, the ball was firmly stopped on the outside of his right foot, with the instinct of the shooter, he did not look at the direction of the goal, directly swept with his right foot, the ball went straight to the far corner of the goal, this is a bounce ball, although Lloris stood in the near corner of the goal, but when he made a save, he found that the football had leaked under his armpit, and the ball went in! Saints Southampton lead 1-0.

GOAL!

SOUTHAMPTON GOAL!!

Accompanied by the sensational shouts of live DJs, more than 30,000 fans at St Mary's Stadium began to party.

The Southampton players on the pitch hugged each other tightly and celebrated their goals.

Ings is worthy of being Southampton's top scorer, not only with amazing speed and explosiveness, but also with his foot work, it is with his keen sense of smell, he is not outstanding, in order to be between Dier and Sanchez, the two tall central defenders, to grab the first landing point, and in the face of this opportunity, he showed very calm, decisive kicking and superb shooting skills to create this goal.

Liverpool recruited him a few years ago, only to move to Southampton because the trident of Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino was too strong and Ings had too few opportunities to play. Today's goal is enough to prove his superior attacking ability.