England's three consecutive victories in the qualifiers had greatly boosted the confidence of the England fans. Now they were starting to feel that the media's claim of "this is the strongest England national team in history" was finally credible.
Especially the 4: 2 away win over Serbia, which showcased the England team's attacking strength.
The happiest person for England's consecutive victories was not the fans, the media, or even Tony Twain himself. The happiest person was the Football Association's chief executive, Shaun Barclays, who called him back then.
Although Twain was not his first target, he was still the candidate he found. His good results meant that he had a good eye for talent. Furthermore, since Tony Twain took over, other than his disagreement with the media over the captain issue, his big mouth did not spew nonsense everywhere, which made the worried Barclays heave a sigh of relief.
To be honest, there was a period of time when he chose Twain to be the England team's manager. He was really worried that when he woke up in the morning, he would find his house blocked by countless media outlets. These people would run over to ask him what he thought of Tony Twain's comments.
If such things happened every day, it would not be a wonderful experience.
Things were good now. Twain was focused on the team's work and rarely fought with people in the media. He also did not criticize the work of UEFA or FIFA.
Perhaps the reason why Twain was so quiet was because of the recent good results? If the results were not good, who knew what kind of shocking things that mad dog would do …
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Tony Twain was doing a great job as the manager of the England national team. Even the UEFA's official website dedicated an article to reintroduce the young "Godfather of Champions". He was previously questioned by some experts because he had no experience in managing a national team. Now, those voices of doubt had disappeared.
But the more he was in the limelight, the more the Nottingham Forest fans missed him.
August and September could be considered as the honeymoon period for Flores and Nottingham Forest. He led the team to five wins, one draw and one loss in seven rounds of the league tournament, placing them in third place.
The media, who took advantage of the situation, advocated that Flores was Nottingham Forest's new hope and that the Forest team would return to glory under the Spaniard's leadership. To prove that they were not lying, they even gave many examples. One of them was rather nonsensical — Flores was a "madman manager" in Spain, and his character was similar to Tony Twain's. If Tang En, who had a similar personality, could achieve success in Nottingham Forest, why couldn't Flores do the same?
But now his good luck had come to an end.
Before the match between England and Serbia, Nottingham Forest had lost two matches in a row under the leadership of Flores. After the national team's game ended, the league tournament resumed. As a result, the Forest team drew with the "weak team" Middlesbrough. In the whole of October they did not have a single victory.
That was not all. In November, Flores' team finally defeated Everton, but Bentley was injured. Bentley left the game with serious injuries. The next day, bad news came from the hospital. He would be sidelined for at least three months.
Bentley was seriously injured and the captain, George Wood, was sent off in the game against Manchester United and was suspended for two games. The game against Manchester United was highly anticipated, but the two sides played with the smell of gunpowder. Mourinho was pumped up every time they played against Forest and Flores was unwilling to lose to Mourinho who was also a manager with a similar personality.
The game started with intense physical collisions from the first minute.
Tang En also went to Old Trafford to watch the big game that he called the "football game" after the game.
Moke, who replaced Bentley in the starting lineup, was fouled twice in the opening ten minutes. This ignited the anger of the Forest players.
In the subsequent game, the referee became the main character. He showed a total of thirteen yellow cards and two red cards.
Nottingham Forest won 7: 6 based on the number of yellow cards. In the statistics of red cards, both sides were tied. George Wood and Anderson each received a red card and were sent off.
In the end, Manchester United relied on a controversial penalty to defeat Forest at home by 2: 1. They returned to the top of the scoreboard. On the other hand, Nottingham Forest dropped to seventh place.
After the game ended, the commentator said, "Flores is in big trouble."
Tony Twain would agree with what he said.
He was originally here to observe the players for the next game against Denmark. However, both sides played badly in this game. Nottingham Forest was even worse. The players he wanted to observe did not perform to their standard. This made him very angry. Originally, he wanted to use the lineup from the previous game against Serbia. However, it looked like he might be forced to make some adjustments now.
Bentley had to leave the national team due to his serious injury. Wayne Rooney was exposed for hitting someone in a bar and was currently in a mess with the media and the lawsuit. Michael Carrick was injured in the game. Manchester United did not want the national team to send him to participate in the game against Denmark because it would aggravate his injury.
The national team manager seemed to have it easier than the club manager because he could choose the most suitable players from the whole country without considering the transfer fees. However, there were not many players in a country who could meet Tang En's requirements, especially in certain positions. In a country like England, where professional football was highly developed, there were not more than 40 players who could be selected to the national team.
The need to change any of the main positions was something that gave Tang En a headache.
Therefore, Tang En must be cursing the brothers Mourinho and Flores now.
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November 17th, Wednesday, the national team's international match.
England returned home after two away games and welcomed the group's second team, Denmark, at the new Wembley Stadium.
Twenty-six-year-old Nicklas Bendtner was Denmark's number one star player. A few days before the game, the media kept interviewing him and asking him what he thought of Tang En. He refused to answer all of these questions. To him, Nottingham Forest and Tony Twain were already in the past.
Now, he had also left the hopeless Manchester City in the summer and joined Everton. Although it was still a team that did not have much hope of winning the title, at least the team had the desire to fight for glory. He had rediscovered the joy of playing football in this team.
Tang En also did not use Bendtner to provoke psychological warfare. The former genius kid was one of his biggest regrets in his coaching career. However, it had long since faded away.
He was already a manager who had won the Treble. What else could he not get over?
Therefore, this game was just an ordinary qualifier to him. It was impossible for the media to hype up the feud between him and Bendtner.
If they hyped it up as a fight for the top spot in the group, he would go along with a few words.
This was indeed a fight for the top spot in the group. Denmark and England had the same number of points, with three wins and nine points. However, Denmark's goal difference and goals were less than England's, so they were temporarily second.
In fact, being first in the group was just a fight for face. As long as the team finished in the top two in the group, they could directly advance to the final stage of the competition. Even if it was the third place, as long as it was the best third place in the group, it would also have a chance to go to Spain.
The expansion of the UEFA European Championship in 2016 increased the number of teams allowed to participate from 16 to 24, which gave many European mid-table teams hope. This qualifier was also divided into ten groups. Other than England's group of seven teams, the other nine groups had five teams, and the top two teams in each group would directly advance. Then the best six third-placed teams in the group would play a two-game home-and-away play-off to determine the remaining three teams to go to Spain.
England's draw was good, and it would not be a problem to advance from the group. But to advance as the first in the group was more in line with the Football Association's psychological requirements, and it also made the England fans feel proud.
Tang En made some changes to the England lineup for this game. Walcott appeared in the position of the right midfielder, James Milner on the left, and Gerrard and George Wood in the middle. Mitchell started in the forward line, and Rooney disappeared from the starting lineup. The person who replaced him was Agbonlahor.
Leighton Baines and Joe Mattock did not start in the left back position. The starting player was Lescott, who could play as both a center back and a left back.
The right back was Glen Johnson, who had not appeared in the national team for some time.
In the press box, the media from all over England gathered together to discuss Tang En's starting lineup.
"His lineup has not been fixed since he took over!"
"That's normal. He only took over, how many games has the team played?"
"He's trying to find that feeling of being in the Forest team, isn't he?"
"Actually, it's not just Tony. I'm still not satisfied with England's candidates in several positions, such as the right back …"
"Under such circumstances, it's amazing that he can still lead the team to three consecutive wins."
"Denmark is not Serbia. They definitely have the ability to cause trouble on our home ground. I think it's not good for results for Twain to keep changing like this. "
For the reporters to have the leisure to chat in the stands, it was naturally because the game was not good to watch.
The game played at Wembley was very boring. The Danish team's away tactics were very conservative, and the England team had no better way to deal with such a dense defense.
Moreover, Tang En was not too interested in competing with Denmark for the first place in the group. As long as they could advance, it did not matter what their ranking was.
They were about to face the devil of the Christmas schedule in the league tournament, and the players also looked listless for fear of getting injured. It was natural for the game to be played so badly that people could not lift their spirits.
In the end, the "battle for the first place in the group" that was hyped up by the media before the game ended in a dull 0: 0. The Asian fans who waited to watch the game in front of the television must have been very disappointed, but who asked Tony Twain to not serve them?
Although the result was a 0: 0 draw and the scene was very dull, Tang En was still very satisfied. In the press conference after the game, he praised the performance of the Danish team. In fact, the performance of the Danish team was not praiseworthy at all. He also praised his team's performance, which sounded more like he was lying through his teeth. As long as the England team did not perform well, it could be seen that the performance of the English team was not good. Tang En did this only because he did not want to put too much pressure on the players.
The game against Denmark was over, and the two teams had the same points. England continued to rely on the goal difference advantage above Denmark and ranked first in the group. Holding on to the first place in the group, the England fans and the media did not make things too difficult for Tang En.
After this game, the UEFA European Championship qualifiers would only start again in April next year. In between, apart from playing a few warm-up games, Tang En flew around to pay attention to the performance of the players on the squad list.
This was the most troublesome thing for him — unlike in the club team, he could observe the state of each player at close range every day. The national team players were scattered all over the country, and it was impossible to maintain their state all the time, so he needed to be a "flying person" so that he could keep abreast of the latest state of the national players.
The most hateful thing was that there was no such thing as a "winter break" in the English Premier League. If he was the manager of another national team, he would have more than a week off before and after Christmas, and he could spend Christmas with his wife. But in the English Premier League, the more frequent the games were during this time, and he could only fly around, his feet not touching the ground all day long.
"Maybe I should buy a private jet …" Tang En complained.
"You should be glad that you don't have to pay for your accommodation and travel expenses to fly around, Tony." Walker dampened his enthusiasm. Another person who had to fly around like Tang En was the assistant manager, Des Walker, who Tang En trusted the most.
"I might as well be glad that there have been no problems with the flights we have taken so far …" Tang En rolled his eyes.
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In the competition schedule in November, Nottingham Forest had two losses, one draw, and one win, and their results declined further. More and more negative news about the Forest team could be seen in the media. Discordant voices could also be heard in the locker room. Gareth Bale publicly questioned Flores's coaching standards, and in addition to the fact that he was previously banned by Flores, his doubts caused a stir in the media.
Even though Flores strongly denied that he had any conflicts with the players, it was clear that he was losing control of the team.
On the other hand, Evan Doughty stood out to express his support for Flores, claiming that his position as the manager was secure no matter what the results were.
But after only half a month, he licked back the saliva he had spat out.
Before Christmas, the Forest team suffered three consecutive defeats, and the team was in a mess both inside and outside. Evan Doughty announced that Flores's contract with Nottingham Forest had been terminated, and Flores became the first manager to be dismissed in the new English Premier League season.
Flores was also unhappy with the club's higher-ups for going back on their words. After he was dismissed, he gave an interview to the Spanish media and criticized the club's higher-ups, "… They said they would support me the day before yesterday, but they pushed me into the abyss the next moment … I thought that the managers in the English Premier League would have space to implement long-term plans, but I was wrong. In a team like this, you can't get the time you need … "
Some people cheered for Flores's dismissal because they could not stand Flores's poor performance for a long time. They looked forward to the new manager leading the team to new glory. There were also some people who felt that Flores was just a pitiful scapegoat. Ever since O 'Neill was dismissed, Nottingham Forest had been unable to find a suitable manager. The constant change of managers would only accelerate the team's downfall.
The locker room was very quiet about the change of managers, and no one stood out to express their opinions on Flores's dismissal, not even a single one of them spoke up for him. This could also mean that Flores's relationship with the players in the locker room was really terrible.
Before a new manager was found, Evan Doughty appointed the first assistant manager, David Kerslake, as the team's interim manager. But no one felt that Kerslake was qualified for the position. He had always lived in Tony Twain's shadow, and in many people's eyes, the reason why he could become famous was because he was Tony Twain's assistant manager. As for what he was capable of … Who cared?
Tony Twain was not concerned about the personnel changes that happened at Nottingham Forest that could shake the English football world. To him, Nottingham Forest had really become a thing of the past. Pierce Brosnan had given Twain a call after Flores's dismissal, hoping to hear his opinion on the matter, but Twain felt that there was nothing much to say.
However, Tang En felt that there was nothing much to say. "… This is very normal. His results are not good, so naturally, he will be dismissed. Evan Doughty will never pay for the team's results. Flores must have forgotten the words on the wall of the Crimson Stadium's players' tunnel. 'Other than victory, there is still victory', that is Forest's tradition … When you can't bring victory, then leave. What's the future of Forest? I don't know, I'm not a prophet … "
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