To the disappointment of the excited media, Millwall did not respond as they had hoped. The chairman and manager of Millwall did not talk about the matter. Perhaps they knew they were in the wrong … But the media was very unhappy. They had put in so much effort, and what did they get in the end? It was just the hype of an unknown manager!
Sometimes, when the media calmed down and thought about it, they would feel that they had been used by Tony Twain …
Because who was the only person who benefited from this matter? It was that loudmouth Twain. He not only led the team to a 7: 1 victory over Millwall at Nuremberg Stadium and advanced to the semifinals of the EFL Cup, but also successfully raised his popularity. Pierce Brosnan's report on the subway made Twain very popular among the fans. Now, almost all of Britain knew that Nottingham Forest had a manager who dared to confront football hooligans in order to protect the team. Moreover, those dangerous football hooligans were unexpectedly obedient in front of Twain.
His only punishment was to receive a bill to compensate for the broken plastic baffle next to the visitors' seats at Nuremberg Stadium.
After the Football Association's investigation, they did not think that Twain had done anything excessive. As for the war of words between Forest and Millwall, that was a personal feud between the two clubs. The Football Association would not intervene. Otherwise … Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal, Manchester United and Bolton Wanderers, Manchester City and Manchester United, Liverpool and Everton, West Ham United and Millwall, Nottingham Forest and Notts County, Manchester United and Arsenal … If the Football Association were to intervene in the feud between these clubs, then they could forget about doing anything else for a year.
The investigation report was quite unfavorable to Millwall's home fans. They felt that the Millwall Football Club did not stop the fans' excessive behavior in time, which led to the fan riots in the stands. At the same time, after the incident, the Millwall Football Club's chairman's way of shirking responsibility disappointed the Football Association. In view of the Millwall fans' history of repeatedly causing trouble at their stadium, the Football Association fined the Millwall Football Club 15,000 pounds and ordered the Millwall Football Club to improve the home atmosphere, strengthen supervision of the fans, and forbid similar fan riots from happening again.
Fortunately, no one died in this riot. If someone had died, the punishment would definitely not be just a few fines. London was preparing to bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. The slightest negative impact could have immeasurable consequences. Judging from this background, the Football Association had gone easy on him … …
Due to the impact of the EFL Cup and Christmas, the 24th round of the EFL League was postponed to February 27, 2004. As a result, Forest had nine days after the EFL Cup to prepare for the next round of the league tournament, which gave Tang En valuable time. Just like when he first took over the Forest First Team, he also had as long as 14 days of training after the FA Cup.
Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe it was fate. These two relatively long periods of preparation gave Tang En time to familiarize himself with the team, as well as time for the team to take a breather.
The hype from the media did not affect the team's training, because Tang En had conducted closed-door training and did not allow any media to approach the training base.
Rebrov was basically fixed in the midfield position by him. It looked like Tang En was playing the 4-5-1, a lone striker. But in reality, it was not that simple. When Tang En watched the game, he held this view: formation was no longer the most important part of football. When it came to tactics, the era of talking about formations first had passed. The era of relying on a formation to sweep the football world for ten thousand years had also long passed. The formation map that was submitted to the television broadcaster before the game and then displayed on the screen had no meaning to the team at all. A real manager should be able to make appropriate adjustments at any time according to the situation of the game. Something like a formation was nothing more than a reference.
It looked like Nottingham Forest had abandoned the 4-4-2 they played last season and switched to a 4-5-1. But when it came to a real game, the formation was sometimes still a 4-4-2, just that there were some local changes. For example, Rebrov was still a striker, but his position was at the back and he was a hidden second striker. This not only prevented Rebrov from being surrounded by the opponent, but it also effectively displayed his good skills and his specialties in dribbling and distributing the ball. The threat of him plugging in from the back was instead greater.
It looked like a simple position adjustment, but it allowed Rebrov to score in two consecutive games. Sometimes, outstanding managers were like this. A very ordinary change could create great results. One should not imagine football tactics to be so complicated. If it was too complicated, the manager himself would be the first to get dizzy. So, the way of smart people was often to simplify what originally looked very complicated.
For example, Brian Clough was very good at doing this. He once said to Roy Keane, who made his debut for the Forest team, "Young man, don't think so much. You go up, pass the ball to the person wearing the red shirt (Nottingham Forest's traditional color), and then run forward. It's that simple. "
Roy Keane always remembered this sentence throughout his career and faithfully carried out the tactical instructions that the old man gave him. In this way, he went from Nottingham Forest's new star all the way to the Irish national team, to the Red Devils, Manchester United, to become Ireland's captain and Manchester United's leader.
Keane's football was that simple, and he succeeded.
Tang En also hoped that his players would understand the tactics more simply. Thinking too much on the field would be counterproductive. For example, his request to Taylor was to fight for the first point, and then either shoot or pass. He did not need to think too much about the rest.
His request to Rebrov was to follow near Taylor and pay attention to the second point. After catching the ball, it was up to him to decide whether to pass, shoot, or pass.
The manager could not play on behalf of the players, so it was impossible to explain every move of the players clearly. It was more up to the players to comprehend it themselves.
This was also why we said: First-rate players play with their brains, second-rate players play with their bodies, and third-rate players … don't know how to play.
Solskjaer was known as a "super substitute" because he could always contribute the most important role to the team in limited playing time. Ferguson once praised him as a player who "could read the game off the field and had a high ability to comprehend." It should be known that substitutes were often more difficult than starting players because they were usually given less time. It was impossible to let them spend dozens of minutes to get into the rhythm of the game. When they were needed on the field, it was bound to be a time to see results quickly. Therefore, they were required to get into the game state as quickly as possible and immediately understand the situation on the field. These were basically impossible tasks for people who did not know how to play with their brains. That was why there were so many substitute players, but so few were known as "super substitutes."
In addition to the team's tactical drills and the players' adaptation to their new positions, Tang En had another task.
When the league tournament restarted, it would already be after Christmas. He had to start thinking about the candidates to replace Dawson and Reid now. Other than Reid, there was no one in the Forest team who could play as the left midfielder. Tang En realized that his luck was really good. Reid had actually not suffered any injuries in the past year and had participated in every match. So, he had to search everywhere for a left midfielder. His value could not be too high, and his ability could not be too poor either. Tang En would not be interested in those who were poor. He was not buying players wantonly for the sake of rushing into the Premier League. There was a bigger goal waiting for him.
For Tang En, there was good news. Leeds United's performance continued to decline. Their stock price fell again and again, and the team was now in a state of panic. Around Elland Road, Leeds United's home ground, there were rumors that "once the team finally fell into League One, the club would declare bankruptcy and all the players would be put up for sale."
Tang En knew that this was not a rumor. His chance had come. So, he once again used his "personal capacity" to invite the old scout, Ian Situ Lei Moore, to make a trip to Leeds. He focused on persuading Aaron Lennon, who had yet to sign a professional contract with Leeds United and was in the youth team, in hopes that he would switch to Nottingham Forest. Tang En's advice to Moore was: "You must convince Lennon. If you can't convince him personally, you have to convince his parents and family. If necessary, use money to buy him over. In short, you can't let him sign with Leeds United. Tell him about Leeds United's current situation and let him seriously consider his professional future. Promise him that Forest will definitely be promoted to the Premier League this season. If the promise is not fulfilled, Forest will voluntarily give up his ownership and he can go to any team he wants. This condition can be written in the contract. If Forest does not comply, Lennon can take the club and Tang En to court. "
Of course, if Lennon's entire family were staunch Leeds fans and loyal to the club, and the team valued Lennon greatly and prepared a generous contract for him, resulting in the failure of the bribe, Tang En had a backup plan. He just needed to spend a little more money. He believed that in Leeds United, which was deep in financial crisis and on the verge of bankruptcy, there was no one that money could not buy. The eight million pounds from selling Dawson and Reid gave Tang En the right to look forward to the players he could not touch in the past.
In fact, in terms of offensive players, there was a long list of names on Tang En's shortlist. There were far more offensive talents than defensive talents in today's football world. Even if Reid left, the impact on the team would not be big. The biggest impact was actually the departure of the team's captain, Michael Dawson.
Tang En had always believed that Tottenham Hotspur was willing to fork out eight million pounds mainly to buy Dawson. Reid was just a "bonus," or in other words, a half-sale and half-gift. Because there were too few outstanding defenders now.
With Dawson gone, with Forest's current center back combination, perhaps promotion would not be a big problem. But what would they do after promotion?
(To be continued, if you want to know what happened next, please log on to WWW. CMFU. com. More chapters. Support the author. Support original reading!)
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