Chapter 609: Just A Regular League Game

The away loss to Arsenal caused the Forest team to have two consecutive losses again. Within the hellish calendar, Twain had lost all the games against his three strong opponents with the exception of Chelsea. The media lost faith in the goal of “vying for the league title” that Twain stated before the season. Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool were all his direct competitors for the title. Now that he had lost to them and the point difference had widened, would Nottingham Forest still be qualified to compete for the league title?

Although Twain was unhappy about losing to Arsenal, he was not so pessimistic to think that his team had no future. The media always liked to kick up a fuss and write sensational headlines to attract readers’ attention.

Arsenal beat Nottingham Forest and moved to first place in the league with thirty-three points and one game short, while Manchester United lost 0:1 to the Bolton Wanderers in an upset in the current round of the league games. Liverpool defeated Newcastle United by 3:0 at home and Manchester City had a 2:1 home win over Reading. The two teams currently held twenty-nine points, same as the Forest team, but ranked above Forest due to goal differences.

As for Chelsea, who had recently undergone a major change of personnel, no one held any hope for their results in the games. Not just because the club had just gone through something, but also because majority of the media did not approve of Chelsea’s new manager, Grant’s ability at all. They did not believe Chelsea could come back to life in the hands of the Israeli. Chelsea was no longer in the running for the league title in the current season’s tournament.

As if to prove the media correct, Chelsea lost 0:2 to the newly promoted team, Derby County, in an away game in the latest round of the league tournament.

Everyone waited to see Grant fall, and he did. Having lost Mourinho, Chelsea seemed to have been drained of their spirit. They did not show any fighting spirit on the field. The players were out of form and tactically chaotic. Everyone was preoccupied thinking about their future.

Twain understood it deeply. The Nottingham Forest team was pretty much like that when he first took over. Mourinho had laid the foundation for the team in his three years at Chelsea, but his sudden departure caused irreparable damage to that foundation. Therefore, he had left Grant with a mess, low spirits, and panic, feeling like they were without their pillar. During that period of over three years, the Chelsea players had become used to following Mourinho blindly. He had injected a strong mental strength into the team, and he had filled them with the desire for titles to keep them going.

Now, those things all vanished, like magic. Poof! The dove disappeared from the magician’s hand.

No one knew exactly what the team that Grant took over thought or what he could do with this team, but none of it mattered. All anyone cared about was how much longer he could stay in the hot seat. Abramovich was said to be in touch with Henk ten Cate, who once worked as the assistant manager for Rijkaard in Barcelona, to come to Chelsea to be the manager. There were also rumors that Abramovich had looked for Hiddink, who currently worked for the Russian national team, as well as van Basten, who was the manager of the Netherlands national team. The names of these three men were given confirmation. With Tony Twain, who caused the “swearing incident” a while ago, Chelsea did not admit that they had looked for the troublesome man. It looked like Twain had overreacted.

It was rare for everyone to start a countdown for a manager’s death sentence the day he officially came to power. Should Avram Grant feel honored or sad?

Thanks to Grant, most of the media hype was targeted on Chelsea after Chelsea’s loss and the losses of Nottingham Forest were not worth mentioning against this background.

The devil’s calendar was coming to an end, and then after three rounds of buffer, the intense schedule over the Christmas period would hit again.

This was a special feature of the English Premier League. While the other leagues had a winter break after Christmas, the English Premier League did not have one. Because the public had a holiday on Christmas Day, people who had been busy all year would have time to choose whether to travel or stay at home and watch TV. Similarly, fans would have plenty of time to watch the game live. Considering maximizing profits, it was fitting to schedule an intense calendar during that period. But the problem was that the players were not robots. They needed to rest as much as the ordinary people, and perhaps required more rest. There were twenty teams in the English Premier League and with all kinds of tournaments in a season, a major team might play more than sixty games. The English Premier League also had the fastest pace and the most intense competition. The players had more physical requirements than in La Liga and other leagues and were more likely to show symptoms of fatigue. The cup tournaments in the other countries were usually scheduled midweek. To maximize the benefits of the television broadcast, the English Football Association tried to schedule both the English FA Cup and the EFL Cup on Saturdays and Sundays, to crowd out the league’s schedule. The other leagues could only be packed into the midweek schedule. That was one of the major reasons why the English Premier League had a particularly busy two game per week schedule.

During Christmastime, the temperature plummeted. Britain’s climate was mainly wet and cold, extremely unsuitable for outdoor sports. The probability of injuries greatly increased in the cold and wet. It was no coincidence that the injuries at each club surfaced collectively, like a volcanic eruption.

Like most managers, Twain was unhappy about the arrangement, but countless managers more prestigious than Twain had also opposed it to no avail. At the end of the day, the English Premier League was still a corporation, and naturally put making profit as its top goal. The English Football Association had to take its profits into account. As for the health of the players, since they made so much money, the hardships and risks that they endured were worth it.

Any sport was a gamble for the future with youth as the stake. Some people won the bet, some people lost. It was a reality that made Twain feel very helpless.

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In the 15th round of the league tournament, Nottingham Forest was back on its home ground. The opponent’s ranking was not much lower than the previous opponent, although its ranking was somewhat inflated.

It was Manchester City.

Taken for a ride by Twain at the start of the season, Twain did not mind having Manchester City be the fool again when the Forest team desperately needed a win.

Ashley Young went to Manchester City and had done well. If he had not had a scandal, his current reputation would not be bad. Manchester City became the fool with more money than sense. In terms of Ashley Young’s ability, 25 million pounds was overpriced.

The game was Ashley Young’s first return to the City Ground Stadium. He would be back many times in the future, but they were no match for the first time. It was an argument that virgins were more precious than those who were not.

Some media outlets thought it was a publicity stunt to be hyped. The inside story of the transfer was more or less revealed and everyone felt that Ashley Young was deliberately driven away by Twain because Ashley Young did not want to leave Nottingham Forest. The matter was already publicized by some “anti-Twain” media, which cast Ashley Young as a loyal subject of the Forest team and painted Twain as a ruthless dictator — anyone who went against his will, even if they contributed and were loyal to the team, could be made to leave Wilford in misery.

There was traction for this kind of talk, because the people who hated Tony Twain were the majority. Twain had no intention of quarrelling with people in the media. He never cared what other people thought of him. If he quarreled with someone in the newspapers, it was not due to personal factors, but to to help the team reduce pressure, divert the media’s attention, or purely to mess with certain people. None of which was to make a name for himself — the media said that Twain was a devil with long horns on his head, wings on his back, a tail, and fangs for teeth. He was happy to proclaim this everywhere for fear that others would not know his revolting conduct.

In short, the media wanted to hype Ashley Young’s battle for revenge, but Twain refused to take up the challenge.

“Ashley Young? Oh, he’s a brilliant midfielder and I’m grateful for the contribution he brought to the Forest team over the seasons. Hopefully he’ll be able to play better on the new team. This is just a regular league game. I have quite a few old friends in Manchester City… If you really can’t find the right stunt to publicize, I suggest you publish an edition filled with advertisements, and you can make more money…”

He did have friends in Manchester City, but that was in the past. Stuart Pearce had been recalled to the English Football Association to become the manager of England’s U21 national team last season. As a result, Manchester City contacted Eriksson to return to the United Kingdom because they needed a manager.

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Perhaps elsewhere, a football club’s manager could also be the manager of the national team. The most typical example was the Dutchman, Hiddink, who could be the manager of the Australian national team while he was Eindhoven’s manager. However, this was decidedly impossible in England. Not to mention that the fans’ skepticism about the manager’s loyalty, which was a matter of fairness and could not be ignored. What if a Premier League team manager became the England team’s manager? In order to keep his club’s players more physically in shape for the league, he chose all the players from the other teams for the national team and flew them out thousands of miles away to play important friendly matches only for them to drag their tired bodies back to their respective clubs. Then when they were up against the team of that particular manager, perhaps they would not have strength to compete?

As a result, the English Football Association would never allow England’s manager to serve as another football club manager at the same time.

Even as the U21 manager, Pearce had to choose between the football club and the country. He chose to give up his place as the Manchester City manager and go to the England national youth team.

The Manchester City team that Twain faced this time could not really be considered a friend.

When Eriksson was the England team’s manager, Twain already did not like him. Twain did not have any interactions with the Thai, Thaksin. As for the players, they would definitely not be friends.

The game was as Twain said: a regular league game. If the media wanted to hype the feud between him and Ashley Young, they picked the wrong occasion.

Twain used the rotation in the game. Beckham was in the starting lineup and Ribéry appeared on the left flank. The midfield and middle were still a combination of George Wood and van der Vaart. Twain wanted to focus on the rapport of the combination. If there were no surprises, the Forest team could rely on the two in the middle. Although Ribéry could also play in the middle, Twain wanted him to stay on the left flank.

On the forward line, van Nistelrooy and Eastwood partnered in the starting lineup with Arshavin on the bench, while Bendtner was not even on the squad list.

On the rear defensive line, Gareth Bale became the starter, with Ayala and Kompany as center-backs. Rafinha was on the right while Chimbonda was still on the bench.

The recent results on home ground had been pretty bad. Twain fired up the Forest team until they were ready to burst out with energy and saw Manchester City was a fat lamb waiting to be slaughtered. They were chumps — there was only one thing in everyone’s minds: three points!

“Oh, oh, oh!” the commentator screamed excitedly. “Van Nistelrooy—”

The Forest team took the lead in the opening three minutes. It was too effortless, too easy. Manchester City’s magical aura at the start of the season was fading, and now they were just waiting for a strong enough opponent to send them packing to where they came from.

The Dutch striker ran on the sidelines with open arms, like a flying bird. Twain forgot where he had first heard the phrase “the Flying Dutchman,” but at that moment, he connected to it. Van Nistelrooy was as good as ever. He had made the right choice in purchasing him. Not only was his form stable, but he was also conscientious, and he never formed a Dutch clique with his fellow Dutch countrymen. He had a good relationship with Beckham and could also unite the others. A real professional player. Sir Alex, how could you let go of such a man?

Manchester City launched a strong counterattack before the end of the first half but did not achieve any results. Ayala was old, but he had experience. Coupled with George Wood’s diligent efforts, Manchester City’s offensive was all bark and no bite.

During halftime, Eriksson encouraged the players to work harder. Being one goal behind was nothing. Anything could happen on the football field.

Three minutes again into the second half, the Forest team scored a second goal.

Twain also told his players that anything could happen on the football field. A one goal lead was nothing at all, and they had to sneak in an attack on their opponent when they fought back aggressively.

He succeeded again.

Manchester City pressed on heavily and the Forest team seized ahold of the empty backfield to score another goal.

The look on Eriksson’s face was ugly when they trailed by two goals.

The goal was scored by van der Vaart, whose long shot pierced through Joe Hart’s hands.

For the rest of the game, the Forest team persisted and scored another two goals.

Ribéry and Eastwood each scored a goal, and the Forest team eventually beat Manchester City with a 4:0 win.

What about Ashley Young, who was used as a stunt by the media before the game? He was crushed by the offensive from both Gareth Bale and Ribéry during the game and did not play as well as he should have. After seventy minutes of mediocrity, he was replaced. He walked off with his head down and ended his “Journey of Vengeance.”

The Forest team’s victory stopped their possible decline, and Twain was in a good mood.

He and Eriksson hugged and the fact that he had fiercely criticized the Swede on television and in the newspapers was nowhere to be seen.

At the press conference, a reporter asked about the goal that Twain had set for the team before the season. Now that the team had lost three games to their most direct competitors, would it have any adverse impact on the goal he set for the team before the season?

“It certainly makes things a little more difficult for us, but I think it’s more valuable to get the title like that,” Twain replied with a laugh. He was in a good mood and did not bicker with the reporter. “The goal has not change. It is still the championship title!”