Greatest Of All Legends

Chapter 866: Four Seasons III

With a feint to the right, Jason faked his marker and made a pass to Hojberg in front of him in the final third.

Receiving the ball with only a touch to send the ball to Kane who stood at the edge of the penalty box, his back to goal, Hojberg also began running into the penalty box to draw back the Southampton defenders even more.

With his back to the post, Kane sent the ball into the path of Jason who had arrived on the right edge of the penalty box.

Receiving the ball with a light touch to slow it down, Jason faced off against the only player directly in his path.

As luck would have it, Salisu was once again the player trying to stop Jason from scoring and Jason wouldn’t have it any other way.

A feint to the left with the ball still moving, Jason pulled Salisu into his movement like he were casting black magic.

With a step over and a cut back to the right, he destabilized Salisu’s standing position, but the man was still following him, not yet giving up.

Another fake shot from the right drew Salisu who was still turning to the right back to the left and he almost slipped but held on, still doing his best to block Jason’s path to goal.

However with all those previous feints to set the mood, Jason’s next shot attempt was lunged at by Salisu who finally committed and gave up his standing position.

But a second later, he saw Jason merely fake the shot and pull it back to the left.

In that moment, Salisu had began instinctively lunging to block the right while still on his bottom, but behind him, Jason’s earlier feint had already been switched back and all Salisu achieved was looking completely lost on camera.

With his marker floundering helplessly on the ground before him and no one else but the goalkeeper in his path, Jason hit the ball at goal and past a Foster who could barely react.

{Three! Three!}

{Spectacular! Magnificently spectacular!}

{He just will not be stopped today!}

{They tried time and again to knock him down, but they’re the ones who fell asleep and he became their nightmare!}

{Single handedly! Time and time again! He’s destroying them!}

Jason had already run to the stands where the visiting Tottenham fans were screaming for all they were worth and stopping in front of them, he held his hands out wide, displaying himself proudly to the world.

Spring had come.

#59th minute...

Southampton had been rocked, shaked, destabilized and Tottenham were enjoying the aftereffects of it.

Jason especially seemed to have entered a flow state and whenever he got the ball, he would first look to dribble past his marker before passing the ball to a teammate.

He wasn’t backing down at all and even when he didn’t need to dribble, he did it anyway, making sure his opponents were kept on their toes.

Even then, he didn’t push them to much.

At this point, there was a very thin line between keeping them on their toes and aggravating them terribly.

Jason seemed to know exactly where this line was and he danced easily on it.

Once again, Tottenham was on the ball, moving it upfield with quick and clever passes, but they weren’t quite on the counter so no one really thought of it as a dangerous attack.

However as the ball neared their penalty area, the Southampton players got more serious defensively and blocked the paths towards goal, while the defenders got closer to the men they were marking.

In the final third, just a few yards in front of the penalty box, Jason could hear Salisu arrive behind him, staying within tackling range so he could get right on Jason if the ball came his way.

And indeed the ball was soon rolling Jason’s way.

{The ball goes to Jason who has his back to goal}

Salisu immediately charged in at Jason’s back, ready to unbalance him even at the risk of a freekick. He was done letting Jason get past him.

However as the ball reached Jason, in one swift and smooth motion, he flicked the ball upwards and over to his back, and in a single flowing motion, he turned around, somehow avoiding Salisu and then hitt the ball on the volley at the goal.

The ball thundered at goal, stunning everyone and Forster could barely react.

By the time he could react, it was clear that he couldn’t even reach the ball that had smashed into the top right corner of the goal.

{Jason with the screamer and OHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!}

{FOURRRR!!!}

{INCREDIBLE! JUST INCREDIBLE!!!}

{How many more does he want!}

{Four of the best goals we have ever seen! Coming from one man!}

Jason raced down to the sidelines in front of the visiting Tottenham fans and with his right hand holding four fingers in front of his face, he jumped into a kneeslide with a huge smile on his face.

Summer Madness.

The fourth season for today had shown itself.

As the team celebrated the goal on the sidelines, Conte, still in shock from the stunning goal, was disturbed from his thoughts by the words of his assistant manager.

"That kid really has quite the temper. He’s really playing out of his skin right now," the man chuckled.

"Well, it’s bringing results, isn’t it?" Conte grinned.

"For now. Those guys are really going to get aggressive with him now.

"It was a slighting on their part to let him do all he wanted up till now, but from now on the Southampton players looked like they were ready to kill Jason if he dared to run at them with a ball again.

"Tell Dele Alli to warm up," Conte said after a little thought.

Jason might be unhappy at being taken off now that he was in perhaps the most purple patch of his life, but Conte didn’t want to risk any injuries when the game was already in their hands.

Surprisingly, Jason didn’t complain when he saw his number in red on the board and with a smile on his face, he walked off the field.

He was having perhaps one of the best games of his life, but because he had been playing so hard to prove a point, he had over exerted himself a little too much too early and he was already quite tired.

So as soon as the board went up and his number was shown, he was actually quite relieved and happily accepted being subbed off the field.

For Dele Alli, it was to be his last match for Tottenham.

His contract with the club was running out in January and he and the club hadn’t been able to agree on a contract.

It didn’t help that his play time was nowhere where it was before and his importance in the team was at an all time low.

The added fact that Conte didn’t have a place in his system where a natural 10 fit into and that Dele would have to change his whole playing style to fit in with no actual guarantee of playtime was the final nail in the coffin.

Dele chose to leave and the club didn’t care to stop him.

As a fan favorite once upon a time, Dele had received more playtime as the days counted down, with Conte giving the fans the chance to see him play a few more times before he left.

It was also a sort of scouting attempt from Conte to see whether Dele Alli could display qualities that would be very useful for the team.

If Dele displayed those qualities, Conte would have gone directly to the board to help Dele renegotiate a contract with agreeable terms.

After all, Conte needed players and in today’s market getting the players he would need would cost a pretty dime.

Better to pay a few more ten thousand in wages than spending tens of millions on bringing in a quality player.

However, with Dele Alli no longer willing to fight for a place at the club, he merely did his job on the pitch, display none of the fighting quality that Conte wanted to see from players on his team.

With that much, it was settled, Dele was leaving.

After Jason left the pitch, the Southampton players heaved sighs of relief.

They had been constantly rattled ever since Jason began playing with the aim of making a joke of everyone who came at him.

Forget being professionally trained, if any professional footballer played against a professional freestyler, they would be frustrated to oblivion.

The reason why professional freestylers weren’t put in the same breath as professional footballers was because they couldn’t keep up their performance for long periods of time and their goal scoring abilities were weaker against structured formations.

Dribbling was high octane movement and it drained stamina, that was why wingers who were particularly good at breaking past opponents usually had lesser defensive responsibilities so that they could save stamina.

But a monster like Jason had suddenly showed up.

The arsenal of skills of a professional freestyler, able to use it against actual footballers, annoyingly high stamina to keep it up for almost half the game and terribly high goal scoring ability.

It was simply a nightmare to play against.

What they didn’t know was that Jason was actually already exhausted and the fifteen minutes break during halftime was what allowed him to recover enough stamina to keep up his performance after halftime.

Due to being rattled, they were easier to see through and he had kept getting past them, but because of the smile on his face as he played constantly made the Southampton players think he was doing all this with ease.

As he was finally taken off, most of the players could finally heave a sigh of relief and resettle into their game, even though there wasn’t much else to play for.