Advancing into the top four of the Champions League, and for the third year in a row, was a remarkable achievement. Even if they were unable to win the Champions League at the end of this season, Tony Twain would still engrave his name in the history of the Champions League. His prestige in Nottingham Forest was like the sun at high noon. Outside of England, when people mentioned "Nottingham Forest," they only knew it was Tony Twain's team and did not know who the real owner of the club was. He became the spokesperson of Nottingham Forest. When Tony Twain was mentioned, people would naturally think of Nottingham Forest. When Nottingham Forest was mentioned, the first person that came to mind was Tony Twain and not the star players.
While he was proud on the field, Twain was also a victor off the field. After the Champions League game, Armani announced that Tony Twain had become their national advertising spokesperson in the United Kingdom. Large photos of Tony Twain wearing an Armani trench coat appeared in major shopping malls and specialty stores.
This was something that had been decided long ago, but it had not been made public. Armani had been looking for the right opportunity to announce it. Advancing to the top four of the Champions League was clearly the best opportunity. Before this, Twain had taken some time to take a few sets of photos, which were put to use now. Speaking of which, Tang En felt a little ashamed. Although they had the intention for this matter a year ago, it was only recently that Shania, who was far away in America, had pulled the strings and completely facilitated it. This was his own matter, but Shania was more concerned about it than he was.
Speaking of Shania, the little girl was doing well in the United States. Because she already had some friends in the showbiz world, she was not a rookie who had just gone to Hollywood. She had many people to take care of her, so Twain did not have to worry about it. He could not worry even if he wanted to. The showbiz world was not his domain.
Shania liked movies very much. She quite liked working in the place where movies were produced. She was not as resistant to the busy work as she was when she was in a runway show. In Hollywood, other than sometimes flying around the world to promote the fashion products she was endorsing, she spent most of her time living in Hollywood and interacting with famous movie stars. Another important job was to attend classes — the performance classes that her manager, Mr. Fasal, had arranged for her. Since she had decided to try out the movie industry, she could not do without the necessary homework.
Shania was very enthusiastic, and her mood was not low during the phone conversation with Tang En. This was what made Tang En most at ease. He was afraid that the little girl would throw a tantrum and make things difficult for Fasal.
The only pity was that for the sake of her career, Shania would have to settle in America for a period of time and would not be able to return to England.
After Shania settled down in the United States, the happiest person was Victoria, Beckham's wife. Although her husband went against her wishes at the last moment and chose to return to England instead of the United States, she temporarily compromised. In fact, in her heart, she had never given up on going to the United States. It was no longer news that she wanted to go to Hollywood, and Beckham didn't think there was anything wrong with it. After all, he had a career, and so did his wife.
Victoria would sometimes fly to the United States to look for Shania, and then she would introduce her to other Hollywood stars.
At this time, Beckham had become a loner. He was in the same boat as Tang En.
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Having advanced into the top four of the Champions League, the next match would be at the end of April. Tony Twain had nearly a month's time to prepare for the league tournament. The fight for the league title had entered a white-hot stage.
After the 33rd round of the league tournament on April 5th, Nottingham Forest was ranked second with 76 points, Manchester United was temporarily at the top with 77 points, and Arsenal was ranked third with 70 points. The teams most likely to win the league title were basically these three teams.
Although Chelsea had changed their manager, it seemed that their results in the league tournament had not improved at all. Now that they were being pushed out of the top four by Liverpool, their goal in the league tournament was no longer to win the league title, but to fight to qualify for next season's Champions League.
The winner of the league tournament for two years in a row had fallen to such a state, which made people sigh for a while. But professional football was like this. There was no such thing as an ever-victorious general in the world. There would always be a ebb and flow.
Compared to their results in the league tournament, Chelsea was surprisingly strong in the Champions League.
Originally, after Mourinho was dismissed, everyone thought that Chelsea would face a complete collapse. They were routed in both the league tournament and the Champions League. Even if they had advanced from the group stage, they would not go far in the knockout stage.
Tony Twain thought so. Of course, he thought so with some of his own subjective feelings.
But he really did not think highly of Grant's coaching ability. The inconsistent performance in the league tournament had confirmed this point, but the strong performance in the cup overturned this view.
There were three teams from the English Premier League in the top four of the Champions League. One was Tony Twain's Nottingham Forest, another was Ferguson's Manchester United, and the last was Grant's Chelsea.
They all led their teams into the Champions League's top four. Tony Twain received praise, but the voices around Grant were still "skeptical." It was simple. The Forest team's opponent in the quarterfinals was the powerful Real Madrid, while Chelsea's opponent was a team like Fenerbahçe. Putting aside the home field factor, this team's strength was the last among the eight teams.
Therefore, Chelsea's victory was not convincing. Moreover, there was a popular saying among the media and fans — Grant's current achievements were built on the foundation of Mourinho, so there was nothing to praise. Grant's current lineup was basically the same as Mourinho's, and Shevchenko was still sitting on the bench. From the looks of the match, there was a strong sense of Mourinho's style, and the team's training was probably still the same as when Mourinho was in charge …
Tell me, under such circumstances, how can any achievements be convincing?
Therefore, Grant's relationship with the English media was very bad. Although Mourinho had many disputes with the media, in general, the media liked the existence of a topic like Mourinho, and Grant could not create any topics for the media. He was always quiet and did not start a war of words with other managers. He was not handsome, and he was not the idol of middle-aged and elderly women. He was just an ordinary team manager. Such a person had inherited Mourinho's position. Comparing the two, Grant was indeed a huge disappointment …
Then look at another person, Tony Twain. For the English media, with Tony Twain around, it was like a holiday every day. They had just sent away Real Madrid, which had caused a war of words between the two countries, and now they had attracted Chelsea, which had an old grudge.
Remember the series of storms caused by Mourinho's resignation? Tony Twain, who had nothing to do with it, became the main character, but the media liked it. On one hand, they openly criticized Tony Twain for speaking without thinking, and on the other hand, they hoped that Tony Twain would have a few more brain cramps to give them circulation.
In the 34th round of the league tournament, Nottingham Forest challenged Chelsea in an away game. The media were like wild dogs in heat, getting excited.
Grant did not want to talk more about his feud with Twain. In fact, they did not have any feud. It was just that Twain asked "Who is that?" at the time.
But the media did not let it go and insisted that Grant express his views on it. The questions that surrounded him had nothing to do with the team. They were all "How is Tony Twain?" and the like.
Later, Grant could not take it anymore and roared at the media, "When I first took office, you were always talking about Mourinho. Now you're talking about Tony Twain. Are you here to interview me or those two people? I know you're comparing me to Mourinho, but I think I've done a good job — leading the team to the Champions League semi-finals! What does a poor league ranking have to do with me? "
His sudden outburst caused an uproar among the reporters.
Since he had already exploded, Grant simply finished his words, "Why are we not in a good position on the table? What other explanation can I give? I can only do my job, but the truth is — when I took over the team, we were already too many points behind the leaders. After that, we had to keep up with the other teams, which was not easy. What else do you want? You think Mourinho is not as good as me, so why am I the one sitting here being interviewed now, and not him? "
The tone of his attack on Mourinho was already very, very strong.
Previously, when the media had been criticizing Grant for not being as good as Mourinho, he did not come out to refute. He did not expect his first counterattack to be so blatant. Was he not afraid of offending the power in the locker room by saying this? Everyone knew that his ability to manage the locker room was poor and could not control those big shots. Now that he said this, it was undoubtedly adding fuel to the fire. Could it be that just leading the team to the Champions League semi-finals had made him tough?
After saying this, Grant got up and left with a flick of his sleeves.
He had just left when Twain came in, watching Grant leave with a mocking smile on his face. He had heard the entire process of Grant's rage from outside the door. He thought Grant's words were ridiculous. The way he pushed the blame to his predecessor was too unskilled.
He decided to infuriate him further.
"When I took over Nottingham Forest in the second half of the English Football League Championship, the team was ranked fourth from the bottom. After half a season, we returned to the Premier League." He said with a grin, "I hope to use this story to encourage Manager Grant. 'What was the team's ranking when I took over?' Only an incompetent person would use such an excuse … Ah, of course, I'm not saying that Mr. Grant is incompetent. Please stop twisting my words. To be able to lead the team to the Champions League semi-finals is a remarkable achievement … If I were Grant, I would give up the league tournament and concentrate on preparing for the Champions League. Anyway, Chelsea will definitely not win the league title this season. "
What he said was the truth, and his suggestion was very reasonable. But to the Chelsea fans, anyone could say that except for Tony Twain. If he said it, it would be a blatant provocation.
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Tang En did not know whether Grant had been further enraged before the match, because he was not accepting any interviews. No one knew what he was thinking.
It was not until the match that Tang En got his answer — Grant was burning with anger and wanted to settle scores with Tang En.
Chelsea went all out at home, intending to defeat Nottingham Forest. In fact, whether or not they angered their manager, Chelsea would not let Nottingham Forest off easily at home.
The two sides had accumulated deep enough grievances over the years. What Tang En did was just to add firewood to the blazing fire.
If Chelsea wanted to attack, Nottingham Forest would defend. Playing defensive counterattack in an away game was what the Forest team was good at. Tang En was afraid that Chelsea would not attack. Now it was all right.
No matter how fierce Chelsea's offensive was, Nottingham Forest, used to such scenes, patiently dealt with Chelsea amidst the sky full of boos. Defensive counterattack had to be defended first. The Chelsea fans in the stands thought of ways to insult and provoke Nottingham Forest, but Tang En's team was unmoved.
The game was basically Chelsea attacking and defending around the Forest team's half of the field. The score remained 0: 0.
With ten minutes to go until the end of the game, Grant suddenly thought it through — for the current Nottingham Forest, the only result they could accept was a win. Because they were in a tight race with Manchester United, if they did not win, they could lose their hopes of winning the title. Then, even a draw would probably be a failure for Tang En. And I can accept a draw. Since that's the case …
He decided to stop the team from attacking and deal with the Forest team. Getting a point was enough to make Tang En fly into a rage. For a person who did not respect his opponent, not getting the result he wanted the most was the best revenge.
Just for the sake of taking revenge on his opponent, Grant was already at a disadvantage.
At that moment, Tang En brought on two attacking players, Arshavin and Petrov, and replaced the exhausted full backs, Rafinha and Leighton Baines. He withdrew George Wood back to play with Pepe and Kompany as the three center backs. Once the Forest team was reformed, they began to take the initiative to attack. They also dared to put in their forces when attacking. Other than the three center backs, everyone went up. It was no longer the pathetic situation of only two or three people participating in a counterattack.
The defensive pressure was relieved, and Nottingham Forest's offense began to show its might.
This sudden change in formation caught Chelsea by surprise. The Forest team abruptly stepped up their offense, which they could not withstand.
In the 87th minute, Chelsea, who had been attacking for 80 minutes, became the side behind.
1: 0!
Arshavin raised his arms and shouted.
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