Evan Doughty did not lie to Tang En. The next day, all of the media outlets in Nottingham that were close to Nottingham Forest F.C. used a large amount of space to report on the contract renewal. The Nottingham Evening Post, which had the best relationship with Forest F.C., even used the mushy words of "deciding on future contract renewal" to confirm the nature of Wood's contract renewal.
Even when Forest brought in Mikel Arteta a few days ago, the media's reaction was not as positive as this time. It looked like Evan had really put in a lot of effort.
George Wood accepted his first interview with the media at the behest of his agent, Billy Woox. Tang En glanced at the report and knew that Wood's answer must have been prepared by Woox. However, the meaning of what he said was not much different. It was just that the way he expressed it seemed a little more flexible.
Tang En believed that with Evan Doughty publicizing Wood's contract renewal in such a high-profile manner, he must have made preparations to continue bleeding. In the next half of the season, there would definitely be other players within the Forest team who would request for changes to their contracts.
George Wood had used his outstanding performance to fight for a better contract for himself. Then, would the other players not do well? Leighton Baines, Ashley Young, Freddie Eastwood, Peter Crouch … these people probably needed better contracts to encourage their contributions to the team.
Tang En thought about it. Instead of waiting for the other party's agent to come knocking and waste time talking to them one by one, it was better to choose a suitable and practical one and issue a new contract together. It would save time and boost morale.
Of course, it was not now. Forest was about to face Manchester United at home. This was a key match in the fourth round of the FA Cup.
※ ※ ※
Because Manchester United had been defeated by Nottingham Forest at home in the league tournament, the Forest fans were filled with many beautiful expectations for this match, such as defeating and eliminating Manchester United …
Ferguson did not mention to the media about the painful loss of three points in the final moments of the league tournament. Even when the media asked about it, he vaguely brushed it off. However, he did, intentionally or unintentionally, recall the beautiful moments when Manchester United had been here.
"Six years ago, my team and I had very beautiful memories here. Even now, I still feel excited when I think about it. I also believe that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer would agree with me."
The six years Ferguson was referring to was February 6, 1999. That season was Manchester United's most glorious season — the Treble. On February 6th, Manchester United visited the Nottingham City Stadium in the league tournament to challenge the then declining Forest team. Before this season's Champions League final, this game was the most brilliant game for the super substitute, Solskjaer. It was the perfect interpretation of his title of "super substitute."
In that game, Manchester United completed a massacre in the away game. They defeated Nottingham Forest 8: 1. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who came on as a substitute at the last minute, scored four goals in twenty minutes, setting a Premier League record.
To Ferguson and Solskjaer, this was indeed a wonderful moment worth remembering for a long time and relishing. But Ferguson should not have mentioned it in front of the Nottingham Forest fans.
That kind of game and score was an absolute nightmare for the Forest fans. It was the last thing they wanted to mention, especially not for Manchester United.
Now the Nottingham media was using the 2: 2 result from more than a month ago to ridicule Ferguson, but they did not expect the response they got was "asking for it." Ferguson casually said that he enjoyed the game six years ago, as if he had slapped you in the face and then said it felt great with a face full of happiness.
It was a great humiliation.
This was Ferguson's most commonly used psychological tactic — to provoke the opponent and make them lose their cool judgment in the tactical arrangements. Regardless of whether the Forest team and Tony Twain were angered or not, the Nottingham Forest fans and media were angered. Twain originally did not feel anything about the feud between the two teams.
Tang En originally did not have any feelings towards the feud between the two teams. In 1999, he was still in China. At that time, he did not know much about the English Premier League. He also did not care about the results of a declining team, Nottingham Forest. He only heard about the 1: 8 result from other sources later on. Ferguson's provocation was of no use to him.
But his players did not think so. Even though none of them had experienced that crushing defeat, as players, no one wanted to be looked down upon.
What did Ferguson mean by that? The Forest players thought that Ferguson's subtext was, "Since I could beat that Nottingham Forest team 8: 1 six years ago, then today, six years later, I can also beat your Forest team!"
They felt deeply insulted.
Even though Albertini and Hierro remained calm, their aura of calmness did not affect many people in the large group of Zealots.
Tang En had seriously considered this problem. Ferguson's pre-match speech had angered his players. Should he deliberately avoid such angry emotions during the match, or should he beat them at their own game and use this opportunity to boost his players' fighting spirit and stimulate their potential?
There were two outcomes to anger. One was that the angered party would be torn to pieces by the emotion, and the other was that the angered party would be torn to pieces by the anger.
Twain had to make a choice between the two. He could not choose mediocrity. Mediocrity was useless on the football field.
He understood the number of people in the team who had these two emotions and found that the majority of people were angry at Ferguson's speech and felt that they did not get the respect they deserved. There were pitifully few people who thought that the Forest team should treat this game as a normal FA Cup game. So, Twain decided to add fuel to the fire.
In the last few minutes before he went on the field, he successfully convinced the players that Ferguson was a hateful old Scotsman and made them hate Manchester United from the bottom of their hearts. Even he himself thought so. He was very satisfied with his own encouragement.
In the end, when the players really went on the field, Twain, who had calmed down in the manager's seat, realized that he seemed to have gone overboard.
Even the Forest team was affected by the ear-piercing boos from the home fans. The anger in their hearts was magnified countless times by the boos, far exceeding the warning line that Twain had predicted.
There was only a fine line between losing reason in anger and igniting fighting spirit in anger. Right now, the Forest team was clearly showing signs of losing reason.
The angry Forest team took the lead. Their opening was unexpectedly good. Just seven minutes after the start of the game, Viduka knocked open Manchester United's goal. Yes, he knocked it open. Viduka had the upper hand in the confrontation with Ferdinand through Ribéry's pass. He pressed on the other side and knocked Ribéry's pass into the goal guarded by Carlo Ancelotti.
The American goalkeeper, Tim Howard, had completely lost Ferguson's trust. Carlo was the one guarding Manchester United's goal for this game, but it was clear that his performance did not satisfy Ferguson.
Before the game, Ferguson kept talking about 8: 1. His meaning was clear. On one hand, he wanted to infuriate his opponent. On the other hand, he wanted to motivate his own players. If Manchester United lost this game, the one who would be embarrassed would definitely be Ferguson himself. So, he would definitely think of a way to win this game.
(To be continued, if you want to know what happens next, please log on to WWW. CMFU. com. More chapters. Support the author. Support original reading!)
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