Chapter 538

At the end of Aston Villa's match against Arsenal.

On another field, the referee Atkinson also blew the whistle for the end of the game.

Aston Villa's cross-city rivals Birmingham held a tenacious 0-0 draw at home to mighty leaders Chelsea.

"Chelsea is tied!"

Assistant coach Steve Werner's chants set the visiting dressing room at the Emirates Stadium abuzz.

"Long live!"

"awesome!"

The Aston Villa players are all excited.

Originally, winning Arsenal had ensured that Aston Villa would surpass Arsenal and rank second in the league with 41 points.

Now, Chelsea are tied by Birmingham with 42 points.

Aston Villa are only one point behind Chelsea!

The nineteenth round of the league and the half of the league ended, and the team ranked second in the league.

Aston Villa are just one point behind leaders Chelsea.

At the same time, leading Manchester United by one point.

Three points ahead of Arsenal.

Such results and rankings are beyond anyone's dream.

This is also Aston Villa's best half-time result in the past three decades.

At the post-match press conference.

A reporter asked Fang Jue, Aston Villa is only one point behind Chelsea, has he ever thought about competing for the Premier League title?

"Our goal is to stay in the top four in the league at the end of the season," Fang Jue said.

"League champion?"

"That's about Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool."

"Aston Villa's handsome young manager has firmly denied that Aston Villa have the quality and chance to get their hands on the league title." - The Times.

According to the "Times", Liverpool Fangjue's reaction to this was quite embarrassing, and some Liverpool fans even suspected that the Aston Villa coach was deliberately burying them.

Because, after the nineteenth round of the league, Aston Villa ranked second in the league with 41 points; while Liverpool ranked seventh in the league with only 30 points.

You said that the seventh place is closer to the first place, are you sure you are a good word?

...

The Manchester United team bus drove slowly in the night.

The players were in a good mood, having fun, playing around in the car.

Ferguson closed his eyes and dozed off.

He didn't want to sleep, the old man enjoyed the feeling after winning the game.

Listening to the boys talking happily, he felt extremely satisfied and at ease.

"Arsenal lost 1-4 at home to Aston Villa." A voice rang in his ear, it was Phelan's voice.

Ferguson opened his eyes with a surprised expression.

It's not that he didn't think that Arsenal would lose to Aston Villa. After all, Aston Villa had won Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United before.

He just didn't expect Arsenal to lose so badly.

"Go back and organize this game, I want to watch it." Ferguson said immediately.

"Okay." Phelan nodded.

"Ashley Young came off the bench in the second half of the game, first assisted Husky to score, and then scored a goal himself." Phelan continued.

Ferguson first showed a surprised expression and nodded in satisfaction.

Then, the old Scottish man smiled wryly and shook his head, "The Villars will definitely ask for a higher price."

...

Manchester United has very rich negotiating skills.

Ashley Young's outstanding performance will directly affect the player's transfer value, which is inevitable.

Buy up and not down.

United know Aston Villa will be more greedy to raise their asking price.

Therefore, Manchester United took the initiative to increase the offer the next morning.

Twenty million pounds!

Manchester United directly raised the offer of 18 million pounds to 20 million pounds.

This is the power of Ashley Young's one pass and one shot, which directly made Manchester United raise the price by two million pounds without hesitation.

However, this price tag obviously still cannot satisfy Aston Villa.

Fang Jue handed over Ashley Young's transfer negotiations to Byron, the general manager of the club.

All his energy is on the home game against Liverpool a day later.

Just played against Arsenal on December 27th.

Liverpool will be played on December 29.

Then on January 2nd of the new year is the FA Cup against Blackburn.

Aston Villa will play three games in seven days, two of which are strong dialogues.

Such a dense schedule also made Fang Jue want to curse.

The day before the game against Liverpool, after training.

The team's 32-year-old native England center Heskey found Fang Jue.

"Coach, do you have time?" Husky asked.

Fang Jue glanced at Heskey in surprise, nodded, and motioned for the other party to talk to him in the office.

Husky is candid.

He told Fang Jue that he had received an offer he could not refuse and wanted to move away from Aston Villa.

"Coach, I am very happy to have worked with you for half the season," Heskey said.

"It's just, this offer, I can't refuse." Husky continued, "At my age, this may be the last lucrative contract I can get."

Fang Jue nodded, expressing his understanding.

He wasn't angry either.

First off, the Husky has a great attitude.

Secondly, from a rational point of view, the club should not set up obstacles if the veteran wants to pursue the last lucrative contract of his career.

Of course, there is a prerequisite for this, that is, the interests of Aston Villa will not be damaged.

And, that doesn't seem to be anything to worry about.

It was the giants of the United Arab Emirates, Al Ahli, who issued a lucrative contract invitation to the former England international.

The Gulf giants are not short of money.

According to Heskey, Al Ahli will show sincerity in the transfer fee.

Fang Jue liked this sentence.

No, to be precise, he likes to deal with this kind of sincere team.

Having said all this, Fang Jue knew that he couldn't stop Husky from making big money.

The only concern is, if Heskey moves away, the team's employment problem on the front line.

In this case, Fang Jue still has three genuine forwards, Van Nistelrooy, Diego Costa and Abanglaho, as well as Mane.

Of course, Gareth Bale and even Deisler can also play as a winger.

Normally, such a striker configuration is possible.

However, he is most afraid of injuries, especially at the center forward position. Once one of Van Nistelrooy or Diego Costa is injured, Fang Jue will have no center forward substitute to use.

If possible, after the winter transfer window opens, let's see if we can find a substitute center forward in the transfer market.

...

December 29.

The 20th round of the Premier League in the 2009/2010 season.

It was also Aston Villa's last game in 2009.

Aston Villa vs Liverpool.

Half an hour before the start of the game, Villa Park was packed.

Aston Villa are currently second in the league, just one point behind league leaders Chelsea.

This greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of Aston Villa fans.

Now, tickets for Aston Villa's home games can be said to be hard to come by.

For the cheapest ticket at 28 pounds, some fans even openly shouted the price, willing to pay two or three times the price to buy it.

The average price of tickets for the cheapest seats of each club in the Premier League is about 30 pounds (about 335 yuan), but the ticket prices vary greatly among different clubs.

Manchester United's cheapest ticket is 31 pounds, the most expensive is 58 pounds.

League leaders Chelsea have the lowest ticket price of £52, the highest of any club, while their most expensive ticket is £87.

From the perspective of a single game, the club with the highest standard among the cheapest home ticket prices is Chelsea, and the average ticket price of the Blues is more than 60 pounds.

Arsenal's cheapest ticket is £27, below average, but their most expensive ticket is £130, the most in the Premier League.

It is also the main reason why Arsenal was caught and criticized by the media.

The cheapest ticket in the Premier League comes from Burnley at £21.

Tickets for the cheapest seat at Aston Villa are £28, below the Premier League average.

The price of the most expensive ticket is 56 pounds, which can be said to be relatively cheap.

Seeing the excellent performance of the team and the booming football market, the senior management of Aston Villa Club has already started discussing whether to raise the price of the tickets.

...

The game is about to begin.

The commentator is also taking the time to introduce the starting lineups of both sides.

Liverpool lineup:

Goalkeeper: 25-Reina;

Defense: 2-Glenn Johnson, 23-Carragher, 37-Skrtel, 22-Insua;

Midfielder: 20- Mascherano, 21- Lucas, 18- Dirk, 8- Gerrard, 15- Benayoun;

Forward: 9-Torres;

"Compared to the first leg of the league, there is only one change in Liverpool's starting XI."

"That was at centre-back, with Skrtel replacing the young Ayala."

Aston Villa starting XI:

Goalkeeper: 1- Brand Friedel;

Defense: 2-Lukey Young, 24-Cuellar, 6-Felipe Senderos, 3-Wilfred Bauma;

Midfielder: 4-Clement, 19-Petrov, 7-Ashley Young, 8-Milner, 10-Deisler;

Forward: 9- Van Nistelrooy;

"This game, Aston Villa has changed a lot compared to the last round against Arsenal."

"Luky Young returned to the starting lineup for the first time in recent rounds."

"Ashley Young, who performed well against Arsenal last round, is in the starting XI."

"There are rumors that Ferguson is interested in Ashley Young and has sent an offer to Aston Villa."

"However, Aston Villa have always denied that Ashley Young will leave the team."

"In the pre-match press conference, Aston Villa coach Fang Jue refuted that 'those (that Ashley Young will transfer and leave) are all fake news'!"

Before the start of the game, when the head coaches of the two sides shook hands.

Benitez, who has always been unsmiling, even joked, "I don't want to hear you praise me as a 'winner' again today."

Fang Jue squeezed out an awkward smile, "I hope today is a wonderful game."

The two exchanged a few more simple greetings and separated.

The game has started for more than 20 minutes, and the score on the field is zero to zero.

As a guest, Liverpool wanted to strike first, and they took advantage of the first kick-off to put pressure on Aston Villa's goal.

And then organized two attacks.

However, Aston Villa's defense is doing very well.

After overcoming Liverpool's offensive in the opening stage, Aston Villa began to show their offensive strength.

Clement intercepts Benayoun's pass at the back.

Then the football was passed out.

Petrov after receiving the football.

Did not choose to dribble.

Instead, knock the football back.

Milner gets the ball.

Instead of letting the ball stay under his feet, he sent it out to the right.

The football just fell to the feet of Deisler who was going forward!

"Aston Villa didn't push blindly," said John Mortensen.

"This is because Benitez obviously learned the lesson of the loss to Aston Villa in the first leg of the season. Today, Liverpool's Aston Villa's counter-attack defense was quite successful. Aston Villa's quick counter-attack could not be played. gone."

Deisler takes the ball along the right flank.

He took a distance and attracted Liverpool's left back to intercept, but suddenly transferred the ball laterally and widely.

The football went straight to the feet of Ashley Young on the left.

Deisler's sudden lateral transfer of the football to Ashley Young certainly caught Liverpool by surprise.

But Liverpool wouldn't be Liverpool if they were fooled so easily.

Benitez is obviously very well prepared for this game.

Lucas and Mascherano were immediately in place.

One went up to interfere with Ashley Young.

One who is always ready to fill in the gaps in the middle.

That's when Lucas pounced on Ashley Young.

Ashley Young passed the ball again.

He did not pass to Petrov, who was closest to him.

Nor did it pass to Milner who was close to him to help.

Instead, he unexpectedly made a diagonal pass of nearly 30 meters, passing the football directly to the right, to Deisler.

Another horizontal transfer of the ball.

"Ashley Young! This is really... a really precise pass!" commentator John Mortensen exclaimed in admiration.

"Ashley Young's performance this season is a huge surprise." Lineker also said happily, "Next year's World Cup, I am looking forward to the performance of Ashley Young's World Cup debut."

The match between Aston Villa and Liverpool is the focus of this round of the Premier League, and it is also one of the earlier kick-off games.

Manchester United's game is the latest kick-off of this round, so at this moment, Manchester United coach Ferguson is watching the game in front of the TV.

Seeing Ashley Young's wide field of vision and precise diagonal long pass, the old Scottish man also applauded.

The more he looks at Ashley Young now, the more he likes it.

Ashley Young passed the ball really well.

Deisler's stoppage was also applauded.

I saw Deisler stretching out his foot and hooking the football while running.

Very steady.

"The pass is beautiful! The stop is also very exciting!" Zhan Jun, the domestic commentator who commented on the game, said in admiration, "Aston Villa made full use of the width of the field and moved Liverpool's defense back and forth."

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