Chapter 610: Back to Top Three

Before the game against Manchester City, the Forest team played another game in the UEFA Champions League group stage. For Nottingham Forest, the question was their advancement, and which rank to advance from.

Twain hoped his team would win the remaining two games and get the top spot in the group.

Consequently, the Forest team beat Porto 4:1 in their own home ground challenge. Although Porto was glorious a few years ago, they could not compete with Nottingham Forest these days.

Some people did not want to believe it, but Nottingham Forest was currently one of the top teams in Europe. The strength of their players and the coaching standard of the manager were both top notch.

Before, no one in European football would have expected a day when Nottingham Forest, who had struggled in the lower leagues, would return to glory. The obscure Forest team seemed to appear out of thin air.

What would have happened without Twain’s transmigration? Perhaps Nottingham Forest would have been relegated to League One or Second Division due to its frequent changes of managers, economic crisis and other factors. No one would ever mention the once brilliant name, and Nottingham Forest, like countless other football clubs in modern English football history, would have a brilliant past but could only drown in the tide of time and money and be quickly forgotten.

Those events might not have happened. They could have changed to an equally good manager and with a little bit of good luck, they could have charged back to the English top flight league after a few years. As for whether they could reproduce the brilliance or not, it could not be determined.

But none of it happened.

They might occur in another parallel universe, but in the world Twain currently resided in, it could only be a hypothetical.

The problem that lay ahead of Twain was that as the tight Christmas schedule and the recommencement of the Champions League in the second half of the season approached, he had to distribute the team’s fitness to ensure they did not fall behind in the final sprint. The rotation system was particularly important.

Rotation and the players’ wishes contradicted. No one liked to be replaced when they were in good form because it meant their main positions were not solid enough.

But Twain had to do it. His First Team squad was not as bloated as Chelsea and other teams. He had implemented a “streamline” policy to reduce the number of First Team players and raised the level of their competitiveness. The advantage of the approach was that they could save unnecessary expenses, but the downside was that they were slightly overstretched when changes were required. In particular, when injury situations struck.

Twain asked the team’s doctor unit to list the current health statuses of everyone on the team and give him a figure of possible injuries.

Eastwood and Beckham were both plagued by old injuries and were affected by occasional minor injuries. Van Nistelrooy’s fitness was severely challenged by the previous series of games on the devil’s calendar, and his current physical condition was not good; he needed to be included in the rotation system. Ribéry had recovered. After playing a few games, he found that there were no hidden illnesses. Pepe’s problem was a bit complicated. He seemed to be able to cope with the games, but after he played two games, the team doctor thought he should be put under careful observation. So in the game against Manchester City, Twain did not let him play and did not even put him on the squad list. He sat in the stands to watch the game. Ayala was older and could not always be used; it was necessary to rotate him. His experience and ability to help the team was not just seen on the playing field, but could also help defenders during normal training. Just as Hierro had done for Pepe, Piqué, and the others when the Forest team first rose to the English Premier League, Ayala passed on his own understanding of defense to his teammates.

George Wood was ruled out of the report. Fleming had told Twain that Wood was an unknown creature that did not belong to Earth. He would be caught and put in a laboratory to be dissected if he did not play football. His physical condition was so good that he was unlike people on Earth.

Twain understood and agreed, because he himself thought Wood was an android from the future. On the other hand, the English media made a big fuss and created a tacky nickname for Wood —”Monster.”

Every time he thought of Wood’s physical qualities, Twain’s thoughts would drift to his mother, Sophia. Compared to most people, Sophia did not have the ability to buy supplements for her son, and there was no way to give him a well-balanced nutrition for his development. She could only save the best food she could afford for her son. In that way, the sickly, weak mother, who was almost on her deathbed, single-handedly raised the “Monster” that amazed everyone in the English football world. It didn’t fit any scientific explanation, but Twain believed it, because behind everything was the love that Sophia had and gave George Wood every reason to be strong.

When Wood became famous, Sophia was also inevitably exposed to the limelight, but after everyone found out about Wood’s childhood, they were surprised that Wood was able to be so strong. Twain would exclaimed, “This is love…”

But…

If he had not considered Sidwell’s feelings, Twain would not have rotated Wood, but in the end, Wood was on the rotation list. However, his rotation was not the same as everyone else’s; he only rotated once in a while. Sidwell’s appearances depended on the Forest team to go further in the English FA Cup, as they had been eliminated in the EFL Cup.

Twain did not change his idea of using a domestic cup to train his players. Whoever the opponent was, he would manage with the combination of “youth team, reserves as well as some of the First Team players.”

Twain did not care for the EFL Cup. Since he had already won it once, he would not have any regrets if he did not win it again. The title for that kind of competition was only seriously considered by teams that had been utterly defeated in other tournaments, as well as teams that had no chance of winning the other championships. Obviously, Tony Twain’s Nottingham Forest was not that kind of team.

The FA Cup occupied a noble position, even in the early years of the Premier League. Although the status of the FA Cup was not low, it was not as good as before. With more than 136 years of history, it was the world’s oldest modern football cup and older than the majority of the football clubs in the world. In England, the team that won the FA Cup was respectable and the team would treat the FA Cup as a prestigious honor. Even many years after the establishment of the Champions League, the English people thought the best cup tournament in the world was the English FA Cup and not the UEFA Champions League.

The Emperor of the Nottingham Forest Dynasty, Brian Clough’s only regret was that he did not lead the team to win even one FA Cup. Twain did not want such a thing to become a regret for him. But the problem was that while the strength of the Forest team was strong enough to win the Champions League, they could not accomplish competing in all three tournaments at the same time. Twain did not want to lose out in the league tournament and Champions League for the sake of the FA Cup. It was not twenty years ago, and the FA Cup was far from satisfying the ambitions of a professional team.

The FA Cup official tournament began in January every year and continued until May, which overlapped with the Premier league tournament and the European tournaments. The intense games would have many distractions and eventually likely cause deficiencies everywhere. As a result, Twain did not want to focus on the FA Cup right now.

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Strong teams like Barcelona and Real Madrid also failed to resolve the problem of competing simultaneously in multiple tournaments and succeeding. When playing the FM and CM video games, it might feel that getting multiple titles was an easy thing to do, but, in fact, there were not many teams that could achieve the Treble. It was not hard to explain Manchester United’s prestigious reputation when they acquired the Treble, a magnificent achievement. Even though Liverpool’s “five crowns” were not as prestigious, Liverpool fans similarly relished it for a long time. It was all the same principle: to be able to win championship titles at the same time in multiple tournaments not only required a strong team, but also extremely good luck. It could not be achieved easily and, oftentimes, could not be governed by human power.

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Nottingham Forest had a strong rebound in December, and Twain hoped the team would seize the opportunity of a less intensive competition schedule to narrow the points gap with the top-ranked teams.

After they swept Manchester City with a 4:0 score, they beat Bolton Wanderers 4:1 in an away game.

Grant from Chelsea finally achieved a winning streak in this round of the league tournament with their home win of 2:0 over Sunderland. Manchester United also had a massive home win of 4:1 against Derby County. But two of Twain’s other rivals, Arsenal and Liverpool, both lost in their away games: Arsenal lost 1:2 against Middlesbrough, and Liverpool lost 1:3 to Reading. Manchester City, one of the top six teams, also lost in an away game to Tottenham Hotspur with a score of 1:2.

Next up was the seventeenth round. Arsenal would host Chelsea at home and Manchester United would go to Anfield to challenge Liverpool. Manchester City and Nottingham Forest were best off in the top six teams — Manchester City would play against Bolton Wanderers at home and Nottingham Forest would play against Blackburn Rovers at home.

The two games between the powerhouses caught everyone’s attention. Even Twain was focused on the two games. Fortunately, they were not at the same time as Nottingham Forest’s game. Otherwise, he would have missed the two exciting games. The process might be not necessarily wonderful, but the result had to be.

After an arduous ninety minutes, Arsenal narrowly edged Chelsea out at home with 1:0.

In an equally tough ninety minutes, Manchester United relied on a breakthrough from the almost omnipotent Cristiano Ronaldo, who assisted Tevez to score 1:0 to beat Liverpool.

The next day, Manchester City defeated Bolton Wanderers 4:2 at home, while Nottingham Forest won 5:3 against Blackburn Rovers.

The points and rankings became interesting.

At the end of the 16th round of the league tournament, due to Arsenal’s defeat and Manchester United’s win, the two teams both had 36 points and ranked first and second, respectively, in the league rankings. And both Liverpool and Manchester City, who had previously shared the same 32 points as Nottingham Forest, had lost their games, Nottingham Forest jumped to third place with 35 points. Since Chelsea had won twice consecutively, its points went from 25 to 31. Therefore, Arsenal was still in first place with Manchester United in the second. Third place went to Nottingham Forest while Liverpool and Manchester City occupied fourth and fifth places. And Chelsea was in sixth.

The order was the same as the 11th round, but by the 17th round, there had been another change.

Arsenal, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest, and Manchester City all won. As a result, Arsenal and Manchester United shared the same 39 points and were still in first and second places. Nottingham Forest was still in the third with 38 points but the fourth and fifth places had changed. Initially, Liverpool ranked fourth, ahead of Manchester City, who had the same number of points, due to goal difference. However, now that they had lost a game, they had to give up their fourth place to Manchester City, who had 35 points. Liverpool, with its 32 points, and Chelsea, with its 31 points, took the fifth and sixth positions, respectively.

The difference between fourth and the fifth place was more than just the rankings on the scoreboard. Fourth place could ascend to Heaven — play in the Champions League qualifying tournament, with a great chance to play in the UEFA Champions League — whereas fifth place could only play in the UEFA Europa League with its much-reduced gains. Although it was not hell, for Liverpool, who had been playing the UEFA Europa League for three consecutive years, it was a result that was even more hated than Hell itself.

The pressure on Benítez’s shoulders was not light. In addition to the turmoil in Liverpool’s upper echelons, there were rumors that Benítez could be dismissed, partly because of his poor relationship with the club chairman. On the other hand, it was also the club board’s explanation for the team’s failure to advance into the UEFA Champions League for three years in a row.

Though the position of a manager normally appeared impressive, since they could order big-name star players around, the pressure they faced was more than the players could imagine. Twain was very sympathetic to Benítez’s rumored situation. He did not want Benítez to leave as well. If all the good managers in the league tournament were gone, he was not interested in playing anymore. There had to be challenges in life for it to be interesting. If all the good opponents were gone, what was the use of getting championship titles if they were easy to achieve?

Why did the trophy look so radiant and fascinate so many people? In Twain’s view, it was because there were good enough opponents on the way to the championship title. The sense of accomplishment was stronger after stepping over strong opponents on the way to the throne rather than stepping on ants.

Fortunately, the Liverpool FC board issued a statement stating that they had full confidence in Rafael Benítez and considered Benítez’s years at Liverpool “remarkable.”

Twain did not have to worry about losing another good opponent.

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In the Champions League group stage, Twain did not fulfill the wishes of the people who had always wanted to see the Forest team fall. The Forest team did not have to play in the UEFA Europa League. Nottingham Forest won 4:0 against Marseille in the final away game. With four wins, one draw, and one loss, they had a score of thirteen points to rank first in the group and advance. Porto also advanced, as they were second with eleven points.

In recent games, whether they were in the domestic arena or the European arena, the Forest team had suddenly become a “cottage industry for goalscoring.”

After the league tournament’s away loss of 0:1 to Liverpool, they scored in every game. They had an 8:0 win against Beşiktaş and 3:1 win against Tottenham Hotspur. The 1:1 draw with Chelsea was the game in which they scored the fewest. They even had two goals in the 2:3 loss to Arsenal, which was followed by a frenzy of goalscoring. In the Champions League group stage, they swept Porto 4:1. They defeated Manchester City 4:0 and Bolton Wanderers 4:1 in league games. In the last game in the Champions League group stage, they had a 4:0 victory over Marseille and beat Blackburn Rovers with 5:3 in the 17th round of the league tournament.

Someone exclaimed that the Forest team was no longer conservative and played offensive football, so offense ruled and so on. Twain was dismissive. His style had not really changed, but the Forest team made a lot more progress than before in controlling the ball and the pace of the game. No matter what tactics they faced Twain had the means to deal with them, and would not be at a loss when he encountered a team that clung fast to defense.

Twain had always thought that in the competition for the league title, the important thing was not to win the games against the strong teams, but to win the games against the weaker teams and firmly grab onto the three points which should have been in their hands. Not losing points senselessly was the key to deciding who would be the league champion in the end. Otherwise, they would be like the Chelsea team in the hands of Vialli and Gullit. They had a group of talented players and advanced tactical play, but because the overall performance of the team was not stable, they could repeatedly beat the strong teams, but would always inexplicably lose points to the underdogs, which eventually led people to give them the nickname “the Disruptor.”

Since Twain took the top spot and advanced of the Champions League group stage, he could put all his energy into the league tournament because Christmas was coming…