Chapter 630 Volume 5 Red Return to Top 3

Before the game against Manchester City, the Forest team also played a game - the European Champions Cup group stage. For Nottingham Forest, the issue they are considering now is not to qualify, but to qualify.

Twain hoped that his team could win the remaining two games and take the top spot in the group.

So the Forest team defeated Porto who came to challenge 4:1 at their home court. Although Porto had a good time a few years ago, but now this Porto team really can't compare with Nottingham Forest.

Some people may not want to believe it, but Nottingham Forest is indeed one of the top teams in Europe. Whether it is the strength of the players or the coaching level of the head coach, they can all be counted.

Prior to this, no one in European football would have thought that Nottingham Forest, which had been struggling in the low-level leagues, would have the day to regain its glory. This fog-shrouded forest seemed to appear out of nowhere, all because of Tang En who traveled back from 2007...

What would have happened if Tang En hadn't been dressed like this? Perhaps Nottingham Forest has now been reduced to the current League One or League Two due to frequent changes of head coaches, economic crisis and other factors... No one will mention this once glorious name. Like other clubs, it has a glorious past, but it can only be submerged under the tide of time and money, and it is quickly forgotten.

Of course, the above may not happen. They have changed to an equally outstanding head coach, and with a little bit of luck, they have re-killed England's top league after several years... As for whether they can regain their glory, it is hard to say.

But none of that happened, did it?

They may happen in the space of another parallel universe, but in this world where Twain lives, it can only be "if" and "if".

The problem facing Twain now is that with the approach of the intensive Christmas schedule and the resumption of the Champions Cup in the second half of the season, he must allocate the team's physical energy more reasonably to ensure that they will not fall behind in the final sprint. At this time, the rotation system is particularly important.

The rotation system and the wishes of the players are a contradiction. No one likes to be replaced by others to rest when they are in good condition, because that means that the main position is not stable enough.

But Dunn had to do this. His first-team lineup was not as bloated as Chelsea and other teams. He had been implementing the policy of "better troops and simpler administration" to reduce the number of first-team players and improve the quality of competition. The advantage of this method is that it can save a lot of unnecessary expenses, and the disadvantage is that it is a little bit stretched when it needs to be changed randomly... especially in the event of an injury.

Dunn asked the team medical team to count the current physical conditions of everyone on the team for him, and gave him the coefficient of possible injuries.

Both Eastwood and Beckham suffered from old illnesses and chronic diseases, and suffered minor injuries from time to time; Van Nistelrooy's physical fitness was seriously challenged in the previous series of devil games, and his current physical condition is not good enough. Not very good, needs to be included in the rotation system; Ribery has recovered, and after playing a few games, he has not found any hidden diseases, so he can use it with confidence; Pepe's problem is a bit complicated, and he seems to be able to handle it There was a game on the field, but after two games, the team doctor thought that we should observe carefully, so in the match against Manchester City, Tang En didn't let him play, he didn't even make the squad, and sat in the stands to watch This game is over; Ayala is too old, and he can't try to play all of them. It is necessary to rotate him. His experience and ability can help the team not only on the field, but in normal training. This experience can also help those defenders. Just like what Hierro did to Pepe, Piqué and others when the Forest team was just promoted to the Premier League, Ayala is just passing on his understanding of defenders and defense to his teammates.

George Wood was directly excluded from this report. Fleming had told Dunn a long time ago that Wood was an unknown creature that did not belong to the earth. If he didn't play football, he would definitely be arrested and sent to the laboratory for dissection. The physical condition is too good... not like the earthlings.

Tang En deeply understands and agrees with this, because he himself thinks that Wood is a biochemical robot from the future. The English media made a fuss and gave Wood a very tacky nickname-"monster".

Whenever Tang En thought of Wood's physical fitness, he would think of his respectable and great mother Sophia. Compared with most other families, Sophia does not have the ability to buy a variety of nutritional products for her son, nor does she have the means to let him eat the best food, so that all aspects of nutrition develop in a balanced manner. She just left the best food she could earn to her son. In this way, a sickly, emaciated mother who was almost dying raised a "monster" that surprised the whole English football world by herself. . Although this does not conform to a scientific explanation, Tang En believes it is true, because behind those crude foods, there is Sophia's love, and there is no reason for George Wood not to be strong.

When Wood became famous, Sophia was also exposed-this is inevitable-everyone was surprised that Wood could have such a strong body after knowing Wood's childhood. Tang En would sigh and say, "This is love..."

Far away.

If Sidwell's mood hadn't been taken into consideration, Twain would not have allowed Wood to rotate at all. But in the end Wood was still on the rotation list - but his rotation was different from others, he only rotated once in a long time, and Sidwell had more chances to play and counted on the Forest team to go in the FA Cup A little further, they have already been eliminated in the League Cup...

This season, Tang En still didn't change his idea of ​​using domestic cups for training. No matter who the opponent is in the English League Cup and FA Cup, he always uses the combination of "youth team plus reserve team plus some first-team players" to deal with it.

Twain really didn't like the League Cup. Anyway, he had already won it once, and he would have nothing to regret if he didn't take it in the future. The champions of this kind of competition will only be seriously considered by teams that have been defeated on several other fronts and teams that have no chance to win other championships except for this one. Obviously Tony Twain's Nottingham Forest is not like that. Team.

The FA Cup... In fact, even in the first few years when the Premier League was established, the status of the FA Cup is still very lofty-although it is not low now, but after all it is not as good as before-as the oldest modern football cup in the world , has a history of 136 years, which is older than the history of most football clubs in the world. In England, a team that can win the FA Cup is worthy of respect, and the team will also regard the FA Cup as a great honor. Even many years after the creation of the Champions League, the English people believed that the best cup in the world was the FA Cup, not the European Champions Cup.

The only regret of Brian Clive, the king of the Nottingham Forest Dynasty, is that he has not led the team to win the FA Cup even once. Tang En does not want this to be his regret as well. But the problem now is that the forest team may be strong enough to win the Champions Cup, but they can't achieve the results that they want to fight on the three fronts at the same time. For the FA Cup to lose the league and the Champions League, Twain would not do it. Not twenty years ago, the FA Cup was far from satisfying the ambitions of a professional club team.

For Premier League teams, the official start of the FA Cup is in January every year, and then it will be played until May. please. So Twain doesn't want to play the FA Cup yet.

Teams as powerful as Barcelona and Real Madrid have not been able to solve the problem of fighting on multiple fronts at the same time, and eventually all get what they want, let alone Nottingham Forest, which has just emerged. If you are used to games such as FM and CM, you may think that multiple championships are an easy task, but in fact, there are not many teams that can achieve the triple crown. It is not difficult to explain why Manchester United's prestige was so high after winning the Triple Crown, which was considered by many people to be a "great" achievement. Although Liverpool's "five crowns" are not very rich in gold, they have also been talked about by Liverpool fans for a long time. It’s all the same reason—to be able to win the championship on multiple fronts at the same time, not only the strength of the team needs to be strong, but also good luck. At the mercy of manpower.

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Nottingham Forest had a strong rebound in December. Twain hoped that the team would seize the opportunity when the schedule was not too dense to close the points gap with the top-ranked teams.

After sweeping Manchester City 4:0 at home, they beat Bolton 4:1 away.

In this round of the league, Grant's Chelsea finally achieved a winning streak. They beat Sunderland 2-0 at home. Manchester United also beat Derby County 4:1 at home, but Twain's other two rivals, Arsenal and Liverpool, both lost on the road: Arsenal lost 1:2 to Middlesbrough, and Liverpool lost 1:3 to reading. By the way, Manchester City, one of the top six, lost away to Tottenham with a score of 1:2.

Next, the seventeenth round. Arsenal, who lost the ball, played against Chelsea at home, and Manchester United, who won the ball at home, went to Anfield to challenge Liverpool. Of the top six teams, only Manchester City and Nottingham Forest have had better days - Manchester City host Bolton and Nottingham Forest host Blackburn.

The two powerful dialogues attracted everyone's attention. Even Twain paid close attention to these two matches. Fortunately, the two matches and the Nottingham Forest match did not kick off at the same time. Otherwise, he would have missed these two exciting matches. It's the game - the process may not be exciting, but the result must be exciting.

After a very difficult 90 minutes, Arsenal narrowly beat Chelsea 1-0 at home.

In the same tough 90 minutes, Manchester United relied on a breakthrough from Cristiano Ronaldo, who was almost omnipotent this season, to assist Carlos Tevez to score and beat Liverpool 1-0.

Then on the second day, Manchester City beat Bolton 4:2 at home, and Nottingham Forest beat Blackburn 5:3.

Now points and leaderboards are fun.

After the end of the sixteenth round of the league, Arsenal lost the game and Manchester United won, so the two teams still have the same points, ranking first and second in the league rankings with 36 points. Since Liverpool and Manchester City, who previously shared 32 points with Nottingham Forest, both lost, Nottingham Forest jumped to third place with 35 points. Chelsea won two consecutive victories, and their points also changed from 25 to 3. eleven. In this way, the first is Arsenal, the second is Manchester United, the third is Nottingham Forest, the fourth and fifth are Liverpool and Manchester City, and the sixth is Chelsea.

The order has returned to the eleventh round of the league.

In the seventeenth thesis, there was another change.

Arsenal win, Manchester United win, Nottingham Forest, Manchester City all win. In this way, Arsenal and Manchester United have the same 39 points, which is still the first and second relationship, and Nottingham Forest is still the third with 38 points, but the fourth and fifth have changed. Originally, Liverpool relied on their goal difference advantage to overwhelm Manchester City, which has the same points, and ranked fourth. Now that they have lost the game, they have to give up the fourth position. Manchester City sits on this position with 35 points, Liverpool 32 and Chelsea 31, ranking fifth and sixth respectively.

The difference between fourth and fifth is not just about the front and back of the standings. This ranking is placed in the last round of the league, and the fourth can go to heaven-playing in the Champions Cup qualifiers, there is a great chance to participate in the Champions Cup main match; the fifth can only go to the UEFA Cup, which is much less paid, although it is not Hell, but for Liverpool, who have played in the UEFA Cup for three consecutive years, that is a result worse than hell.

The pressure on Benitez's shoulders is not light, coupled with the turmoil in Liverpool's top management, there are rumors that Benitez may be dismissed, on the one hand because he has a bad relationship with the club's chairman, on the other hand On the one hand, it is used as the club's board of directors' explanation for the team's failure to reach the UEFA Cup for three consecutive years.

Regardless of the usual scenery, the position of the head coach shouts at the big-name players. The pressure they face is beyond the imagination of the players. Tang En was very sympathetic to the situation of the legendary Benitez. He didn't want to leave Mourinho and then leave Benitez. If all the excellent head coaches in this league are gone, he will not be interested in playing any longer. There are always all kinds of challenges in life to be interesting. If all the good opponents are gone, what good are those champions, no matter how easy they are?

The reason why the championship trophy looks radiant and makes countless people fascinated is that in Twain's view, it is because there are enough good opponents on the way to the championship. Stepping on the corpse of a strong man to the throne is like stepping on the corpse of an ant. There is a lot of sense of accomplishment.

Fortunately, the board of directors of the Liverpool Club issued a statement soon, expressing their full trust in Rafael Benitez, and commented that Benitez's years in Liverpool have been "remarkable".

Tang En didn't have to worry about losing another good enough opponent.

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In the Champions Cup group stage, Twain did not let those who had always wanted to watch the jokes of the Forest team get their wish. The Forest team did not play in the UEFA Cup. Nottingham Forest beat Marseille 4-0 away in the last game. With four wins, one draw and one loss, they ranked first in the group with 13 points and qualified with their heads held high. At the same time, Porto qualified, and they ranked second with eleven points.

In the past two months of competition, whether it is in the domestic arena or in the European arena, the Forest team has suddenly become a "professional goal scorer".

Goals have been scored in every game since a 0:1 away loss to Liverpool in the league, 8:0 win over Besiktas, 3:1 win over Tottenham Hotspur, 1:1 draw with Chelsea this is their goal The least game, 2:3 loss to Arsenal also had two goals, followed by a scoring frenzy: the Champions League group stage swept Porto 4:1, the league won Manchester City 4:0, and Bolton 4:1, In the last game of the Champions League group stage, they defeated Marseille 4:0, and they won Blackburn Rovers 5:3 in the seventeenth round of the league.

Immediately, someone exclaimed that the Forest team was not conservative and was going to play offensive football, so offense is king. Tang En dismissed this. His style has not changed much, but the Forest team has indeed improved a lot in controlling the ball and controlling the rhythm of the game. No matter what tactics the opponent uses, Twain has a way to deal with the opponent, and he won't be helpless like before when he encounters a team that can't defend.

In fact, Tang En has always believed that in the competition for the league championship, the most important thing is not to win the game against a strong team, but to win the game against a weak team, and firmly hold the three points that should have been obtained. Not losing points in unnecessary places is the key to deciding who can become the league champion in the end. Otherwise, you will be like Chelsea in the hands of Vialli and Gullit. They have a group of talented players and advanced tactics. The inexplicable loss of points on the team led to the nickname "Spoiler" in the end. This is really not the original intention of Gullit and Vialli...

After finishing first in the group stage of the Champions Cup, Twain can put all his energy into the league, because Christmas is coming...