The World Cup was over. Some people were happy, and some people were sad. It was no longer something Tang En should be concerned about. He was considering how to maximize the transfer budget of 50 million pounds given by the club.
Bentley's performance in the World Cup was far from as brilliant as George Wood's. However, Tang En had basically affirmed his strength and form. While the World Cup was still ongoing, he had already entrusted the club to inquire with Tottenham Hotspur for a price.
At first, Tottenham Hotspur did not agree to sell England's starting right back. So, during the World Cup, Tang En took some time out to meet Bentley's agent and got in touch with Bentley through the agent. Bentley expressed to Tang En that he hoped to join Nottingham Forest because Forest could participate in next season's Champions League, while Tottenham only qualified for the UEFA Europa League.
So, Tang En hoped that Bentley would put pressure on Tottenham himself and have a showdown with Levy.
Bentley promised to do it after the World Cup. Now he just wanted to play well in the World Cup.
After the World Cup, he once again urged Bentley to have a showdown with Tottenham Hotspur through his agent.
First of all, Tony Twain publicly announced his admiration for Bentley — he had made use of his work during the World Cup broadcast to promote this matter.
Then, Bentley responded by going with the flow. In an interview with the reporters, he expressed that he was very happy with Tony Twain's admiration for him. He believes that Tony Twain is the best manager in England right now because he can lead the team to the Champions League. Pierce Brosnan, who was interviewing him, asked, "What if you played under him?" Bentley smiled and replied, "I think it would be great!"
Alright, now that the couple is in love, let's see what Tottenham Hotspur has to say.
After the World Cup, Bentley had a private conversation with Tottenham Hotspur's manager, Redknapp. In this meeting, Bentley expressed to Redknapp his desire to leave Tottenham and go to Nottingham Forest to pursue the glory of being champions. He hoped that the team could support his personal pursuits, which had nothing to do with his salary.
In fact, after the incident with Berbatov, Tottenham Hotspur should already be aware of the fact that as long as the player wanted to leave, it was useless to force him to stay.
If Levy was smart, he would not have continued to reject Nottingham Forest's "sincerity". Instead, he seriously considered how much he could sell Bentley for.
Tottenham Hotspur agreed to let Bentley go after two days of consideration. The rest was simple. It was just a matter of how much money was appropriate.
Tottenham Hotspur spent 15 million pounds to buy Bentley. With the advent of the global financial crisis, the clubs spent more rationally in the transfer market. The value of the players generally fell, and Bentley was no exception. It would be good if it could be sold for 15 million. In fact, Tottenham Hotspur's offer to the Forest team was 15 million pounds. They hoped to at least not lose money.
Allan Adams insisted that Forest could only offer 11 million pounds.
The negotiations were deadlocked for a week, and in the end, both sides took a step back. Sold for thirteen and a half million pounds. The Forest team would make a down payment of eleven million pounds and give Tottenham another two and a half million pounds after Bentley had made thirty appearances for the Forest team.
The individual salary contract had been negotiated long ago.
Less than two weeks after the World Cup, Nottingham Forest and Tottenham Hotspur jointly announced that England's "new Beckham", David Bentley, had officially transferred from Tottenham Hotspur to Forest for a transfer fee of 13.5 million pounds.
※ ※ ※
After Tang En left the negotiations to Allan, he busied himself looking for the team's left wing.
After going back and forth, he set his sights on La Liga's Villarreal CF's left midfielder, Matías Fernández.
On one hand, Fernández had the desire to leave the submarine. Although Villarreal CF could steadily guarantee their participation in the UEFA Champions League in recent seasons, to win the title was nothing more than a pipe dream. On the other hand, Nottingham Forest had just won the title of the competition two seasons ago. The difference between Villarreal CF and Nottingham Forest was obvious at a glance.
On the other hand, Villarreal CF also needed money. As a small club, their financial budget had always been tight. They could only make money by selling star players. If the Forest team wanted to buy Fernández, the club should not be an obstacle.
Tang En's buying strategy was still two-step — one step was to find the club, and the other step was to find the player. Before finding the club, he would first contact the player in private to see what he had to say. If he wanted to come, then he would focus on the club. If he did not want to come, then he would deal with the player first. If he could not deal with it, then he would change targets.
This time, Fernández really wanted to leave. He was eager to go to a bigger stage, eager for a new challenge. He could not always hole up in Villarreal CF. In fact, if clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona took a liking to him, it would be the best outcome. However, these big clubs were not very interested in him. They were only interested in some mid-tier clubs. For example, Italy's Roma and Fiorentina, the Bundesliga's Schalke 04 and Werder Bremen, the English Premier League's Everton and Aston Villa, and Spain's Deportivo La Coruña and Valencia.
With such a comparison, he thought it was more cost-effective to choose Nottingham Forest. No matter what, the Forest team was also a team that had just won the UEFA Champions League for two years in a row. Although they had suffered some setbacks in the past two seasons, their manager who pursued victory and championship titles was still there, and the team's foundation was still there.
Matías Fernández understood it this way: the backbone of a Premier League team was the manager, so as long as the manager was still there, the team was not finished.
His understanding was very much in line with the current situation of the vast majority of Premier League teams.
Twain assured him that playing in the Forest team would definitely have a better future than playing in Villarreal CF, "because we are a team with a championship tradition."
Fernández assured Twain that if Nottingham Forest could meet Villarreal CF's transfer fee conditions, he would prioritize signing with the Forest team.
Next, Nottingham Forest made an offer of 12 million euros to Villarreal CF to buy Fernández.
Villarreal CF did not immediately reject the Forest team. They just made a new offer: it was still 12 million, but please change the "euros" to "pounds."
Twain did not hesitate and nodded in agreement to the other party's offer.
The next procedure was to compete with several other clubs to see who could get the "ball" thrown out by Matías Fernández.
Since they had already reached an agreement privately. Fernández finally chose the contract offered by Nottingham Forest.
Just like that, Tony Twain spent a total of 25.5 million pounds to get the left and right wings he wanted. Bentley on the right and Fernández on the left.
There was still half of the transfer budget left. How should they spend it?
※ ※ ※
"What do you think of Adriano?" Twain suddenly asked Dunn, who was busy beside him, as they prepared for the upcoming training at the Wilford training base.
"If you're interested in him, I'd say he's not much." Dunn answered Twain without raising his head and continued with his work.
"Hmm …" Twain did not refute. He pinched his chin and pondered.
"You're right. He's really not much." Twain said after a moment of contemplation. "I'm just thinking …"
A day ago, the king of Nottingham Forest had just focused on introducing the two newly joined wings to his teammates, fans and media. Now, he was worried about the choice of the forward line again.
Although Žigić's performance in the second season was much better than the first, and his contribution to the team's tactics was also remarkable. But it seemed that because he always needed to be the bridgehead in the tactics, his scoring rate was trending downward. His assists were up, and he was also very helpful to the team's offense in the front field. But his own goal numbers could not go up. Tang En had already decided to give up the idea of nurturing Žigić as a pure scorer. He found that Žigić did a good job in the tactical center forward position. Other than the fact that he scored fewer goals, he could not find any fault with him.
Agbonlahor was fast, very fast. But his shooting was still a little rough, and he preferred to move around on the flanks because there was enough space for him to break through. He was more useful than anyone else when it came to counterattacking, but the Forest team could not always counterattack. This strategy had long been thoroughly studied by their opponents.
Eastwood's condition was stable, provided that he was not injured. The Forest team had to fight on at least two fronts in the new season. Twain could not expect Eastwood to play all the games in the season alone.
Milan and Moses were still too young. It was impossible to expect them to take on big responsibilities.
So, the Forest team still needed to strengthen the strength of the forward line.
In order to make room for the new striker, Twain decided to loan Moses and Milan out for training. The two little guys were in high demand because of their excellent performance last season. Twain did not need to worry about their whereabouts.
So, the only question now was — which striker to buy?
The most transfer fee that Twain could control now was still 30 million pounds. After buying Bentley and Fernández, Allan Adams added another 5 million pounds to the transfer budget for Twain. It looked like the Forest team really wanted to do a big job in the new season.
Who could be bought with 30 million? In fact, there were a lot of people who could be bought, but there were also very few people who could buy.
The financial crisis had caused the value of the players to shrink. The star players who could easily be bought at sky-high prices in the past had now returned to being commoners. A typical example was Real Madrid's announcement to buy Benzema this summer. The bargaining continued throughout the World Cup, and in the end, they only spent 30 million euros. What did Aulas say two years ago? "Benzema is worth 100 million euros!" At that time, a more realistic offer could not be lower than 50 million.
Ibrahimović, Eto 'o, Villa, Tevez, Berbatov … These people could be satisfied with a transfer fee of 30 million pounds. But in the hands of the Forest team, they could not buy any of them.
On the one hand, the Forest team was still a lot worse compared to the real powerhouses. On the other hand, even if they could buy these superstars, they might not be able to afford their salaries. One had to know that Ibrahimović enjoyed an annual salary of 12 million euros after tax at Inter Milan. Italy imposed a 100% heavy tax on football. An annual salary of 12 million after tax meant that the Inter Milan club would have to pay 24 million euros just for Ibrahimović's salary every year …
Even if England did not impose such a heavy tax on the football industry, a figure like 12 million was something that Nottingham Forest absolutely could not afford.
So, Twain could only set his sights on two types of people: One was the world-class striker who had long proven their status in the football world, but was currently not doing well. The other was the less famous, but still capable, quasi-first-class strikers.
The best candidate for the former was actually Adriano, who was unhappy at Inter Milan.
Before this, Tang En had seriously considered the possibility of the Brazilian joining the team. First of all, although he and Mourinho were enemies, he believed that Mourinho would not make things difficult for Adriano's transfer. Inter Milan also wanted to get rid of the burden that was Adriano as soon as possible, and they absolutely would not allow Adriano to be sold to an Italian team. So, a foreign team was the Brazilian's only choice. At the same time, Adriano and his agent would not agree to return to Brazil to play, so an English team was actually the best choice.
But the core problem that made Twain hesitate was Adriano himself. This was a player who had no problems with his skills, but a big psychological problem. Being late to training, absent, lingering in nightclubs late at night until the next morning, visiting prostitutes, having a bad attitude because he thought he was a big shot, contradicting the team's manager, questioning authority …
There was not a single question that Tang En did not hate.
His temperament was similar to Mourinho's. If Mourinho could not tolerate Adriano, then Twain most likely could not either.
Perhaps he could use various means to make Adriano behave for a season, but Twain was well aware of Adriano's nature and that it would not be so easy to turn things around. Once he was allowed to be complacent again, what awaited Twain was endless off-field scandals. Could he change such a self-deprecating genius?
Twain and Dunn had discussed it several times, and Dunn's conclusion was always the same — it might have been possible before his father died, but it was completely hopeless after his father died.
He also advised Twain, "If the club thinks that you spent tens of millions of pounds just to let him play well for the team for a season, I can't guarantee how the chairman will treat you. Adriano is too risky, and we have many ways to avoid this risk. I don't think bringing in Adriano is a good deal. "
Twain had been vexed for several days. After repeatedly studying Adriano's performance in recent years and the off-field gossip, he officially announced that he had given up on Adriano this morning.
The Brazilian was a hopeless case, and Tony Twain was not an omnipotent God. Although deep in his heart, he felt sorry for the once talented striker, reality was cruel. He did not need to spend tens of millions on charity to save a youth who had lost his footing and was not related to him in any way.
Then there was another problem —
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