Chapter 143: Popularity is the main theme of the derby

Amid the cheers of the Portsmouth fans overshadowing the home fans, Riyad Mahrez slotted the ball away.

The goal completely changed the format of the game, and just twenty seconds after the game restarted, Riyad Mahrez was slammed into him from behind.

A stumbling almost lost the ball, if it weren't for him subconsciously ticking the ball along the way...

Southampton manager Mr Atkins is a gentleman and he has been stressing before the game that it was just a normal game and wanted his players to calm down. He had a point, and looking at the form in the standings, Reading's old boys quickly regained their sense of play after being beaten by Portsmouth and continued to top the table, while the Saints were locked in with Big Sam's Hammers. There are two places directly promoted to the Premier League, and a win or draw in Southampton's derby will not affect the position at the moment, but once it loses, West Ham United has a high probability of overtaking the score, because Big Sam's opponent in this round is not particularly strong.

There is a well-known British proverb: "Keep calm, keep going", and Mr Atkins wants his players to face such a game calmly, which is a common British mindset that runs through their culture and history. This proverb comes from a poster from World War II. The British government did not know whether the German Nazis were targeting the Soviet Union or England, and they could only prepare for the worst, and once the country fell, the poster would be distributed to millions of citizens to encourage them to continue fighting, and this poster printed in 1939 was not found in a second-hand bookstore until 2000, and it touched countless British people at that time.

The manager wants his players to be calmer when facing more difficult situations, and only then can they solve problems. However, perhaps it was the lack of ideological communication or some other reason, they forgot that the popularity was the main theme of the derby, and the Southampton players did not look particularly excited. It wasn't until they fell behind by one goal and faced with sporadic boos from the fans that they woke up like a dream.

As the game continued, one of Lambert's strikers had already begun to push into the midfield position, and Mahrez, who scored the goal, was taken care of by the opponent and was repeatedly brutally brought down and crushed from behind.

"Schneiderlin!" Andy. Gray said. "He gave Mahrez that blow was ruthless enough, directly at the hip bone, it hurt to watch! Fortunately, neither of the two people confiscated their legs, it was a hard injury, and the referee did not say anything...... It's been a while since I've seen such a fierce physical confrontation. ”

Hydeward, who was always calm, also yelled at the court: "Bastard, give the card, this is harm!" ”

The fourth officer walked over and motioned for Hydward to take a few steps back and return to the dotted line, but said nothing.

This is the derby, although the British referee is blind but has a lot of experience, they feel that the first few tens of minutes are just hors d'oeuvres, and so far it is the main course, they only need to control the scene, and the players, including the coach, will not be particularly held accountable for some outrageous behaviors.

The Portsmouth players have no experience of this, and the youngsters have only enjoyed the hot atmosphere on live TV and are unaware of the feud between the two teams.

Hydward had heard the longtime fan describe the first South Shore derby between the two teams while chatting with Tom, and of course he also read it from the book, at St Mary's Southampton hosted Portsmouth, Pompey's opening onslaught to open the scoring with a corner kick opportunity just ten minutes later, but the Saints scored twice before the end to win 2-1. However, the game was not played in full play, as the lights at Southampton's home stadium were strangely extinguished in the 80th minute, so the game had to end in a hurry, and all Portsmouth fans at the time thought that the opponent pulled the lights first when the score was up.

So two months later, the two teams played again, and the lights were bright, with Pompey's Legion winning 5-2 at home, but the Saints were kicked and injured by three men......

The Portsmouth players must understand that the two teams are "light up when they first meet" and must not be too polite. Thinking about their form of relegation, what would Southampton think? I heard you're standing on the edge of a cliff? Don't be afraid, Lao Tzu will push you down. According to the normal trend of history, Portsmouth has indeed been pushed for a while, and the Saints can still consolidate their second place with the three points of Lao Tie, why not?

The brief panic ended with the referee's half-time whistle, and after a fifteen-minute break, Pompey's army calmed the morale of the army and proved that the best way to recover was when Margery opened the second half with a big tackle. Lallana flew straight into the air.

Growing up in Portsmouth's academy, Margery is naturally a staunch anti-Southamptonist and, like the young boy McVeigh, can't even stand a red jersey.

This time the referee was unceremoniously yellow carded, and the game gradually became unspeakably exciting, with more and more physical contact, and as the yellow cards and whistles continued to appear, the scene became fragmented. The most dangerous attack in the first 20 minutes of the second half came from a free-kick, when Riyad Mahrez's forced break down the flank resulted in a yellow card for a foul on Luke Shaw, who hoisted a 45-degree free-kick into the box and Rudiger's header just over the crossbar.

At this point, Portsmouth's fitness must have been red as usual, but no one was particularly bad today, except for Mahrez. On 74 minutes, he was still using the inside gap to create a killing chance, his pass completion rate had dropped from 86 per cent to 37 per cent, but he contributed a full 26 breakthroughs, and Southampton's full-backs and centre-backs had the illusion that they were about to be broken, and fouls could no longer stop him.

Hydward pinched the watch given by his daughter-in-law on the sidelines to estimate the time, this game Ma Ge exploded, and took on all the offensive tasks of the team alone, just like Kante did all the defense alone, one front and one back, one attack and one defense, complementing each other.

He unfurled the flag, Schneider up, Mahrez down.

Ma Ge hugged the head coach breathlessly, and then returned to the bench, slumped in the space chair, sweating profusely. Lukvani handed over two towels and a bottle of mineral water, and asked his teammates to wipe their sweat first. Just this kung fu wiping sweat, the situation on the field suddenly changed, and the shot was better than the cross; Pass; Meunier, who defended well, made another cold shot on the wing, and Davies was not far away from clearing the siege and was caught by Ali.

Ali shot the ball into the arm of the opposing centre-back, but the referee didn't say anything!

"Handball! … Hey, the referee signaled it was a goalball! Martin Taylor also saw it as a commentator.

The young and vigorous Dehrer immediately changed his face, he ignored the Southampton players who wanted to kick off, and went directly to the referee, "Handball!" He pointed to a player near the incident.

"I didn't see it," the referee was equally succinct.

"You should go get a pair of glasses."

The judge thought for two seconds and took out a red card directly from his pants pocket, Ali OUT!

The incident happened suddenly, and the Portsmouth players quickly isolated the little brother, surrounded the black-clad judge to explain, and the Southampton players who saw the bad situation also gathered around to protect the referee and prevent the other side from explaining.

The scene got out of control for a while.

Ali glanced at his teammates who had given him a lead, thought for half a second, and without saying a word, turned around and walked from the field towards Hydward step by step.