Chapter 918: Volume 7: Heart of the Lion King, Honest Man's Jedi Counterattack

Martin O'Neill's nightmare did not become a reality. When he lay in bed and opened his eyes the next day, he was not woken up by the continuous ringing of the phone, which made him feel a little relieved. Because that shows that the club has not sold its main players aggressively, otherwise his phone calls will definitely be blown up by the news media and the players' agents.

Exhausted by the latest transfer rumors and the team executives who always like to meddle in team affairs, the Northern Irishman lay in bed for a long time before getting up to wash up and enjoy the breakfast made by his wife.

When he picked up the milk and the sports page of the Sun that his wife had folded for him, he was stunned.

The most eye-catching thing on the newspaper is the square array of four photos. It was obvious that the photo was taken secretly, the pixels were not high, and the image was not clear, but O'Neill still recognized the baby face of Alan Adams. This is in a restaurant, Allen is talking about something with someone. The candid photographer tried several angles, but he couldn't fully capture the face of the person who was meeting with Alan Adams. In the last picture, when the man walked out of the hotel gate, the camera finally caught his face——Michael Dawson!

O'Neill quickly dropped the photo to read the text.

"...The reporter took this group of photos at the De Lima Restaurant in North London yesterday. The photos show that Nottingham Forest's commercial director Alan Adams is secretly meeting with Tottenham Hotspur centre-back Michael Dawson. The two of them The meeting confirmed the previous speculation of this newspaper-Nottingham Forest intends to let Dawson return. Dawson himself also hopes to leave Tottenham and join his hometown team. His position in the team and Tottenham are also at stake. He is about to turn 31 and hopes to start over in a different environment. It is reported that the amount involved in this transfer should not be too high..."

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With a "snap!", a newspaper was thrown onto the table in front of Evan Dalgety.

Evan looked at the photo of Alan being secretly photographed in the newspaper, and then looked up at Martin O'Neill with an angry face.

"When Pepe was sold by you, you promised to sign a central defender of sufficient standard. I have only one request-enough young! Michael Dawson will be 31 soon, and he has no injuries this season. No, I don't know why you guys decided to buy him!" In the chairman's office, O'Neill shouted loudly without any scruples.

"Michael is indeed a high-level central defender..." Evan glanced at Allen who was sitting silently on the sofa, and then explained to O'Neill.

To be honest, he was not mentally prepared for O'Neill's sudden questioning of him in such an open manner. My mind is still dizzy—how did O'Neill, who was always easy to talk, suddenly turn into a violent fighter?

"What I want is a young high-level central defender, not a central defender who is about to be 31 years old and has just recovered from injuries, and has been seriously injured three times in four seasons!" O'Neill vowed not this time. To give in, you must let the other party give yourself an explanation.

"More importantly, did anyone ask me for my opinion when you decided to contact Dawson?" This is what made O'Neal the most angry. To be honest, Michael Dawson is not unusable, at least his strength is still there, and it is no problem to heal his injury and play games.

O'Neill thought about Pepe's transfer again. New and old hatreds were intertwined. He felt that his head coach was a puppet. It was the other two people in this room who decided everything about this team. One sat behind the boss's desk and the other The face looked at him in surprise, and the other one nestled on the sofa silently as if watching the fun.

"I am the head coach of this team. Gentlemen, in England, the head coach is called a 'manager'. He has different titles and responsibilities from those 'coachs' in La Liga and Serie A. "O'Neill implicitly criticized the two Yankees for not understanding the national conditions of Britain. "It is my right and responsibility to decide who the team buys and sells. If you pay me to work here, I will exercise all the powers I should exercise." O'Neill looked at his boss, his immediate boss, with eyes Full of unrelenting determination.

Sure enough, he had completely different personalities from Tony Twain. Even if he got angry, he still wouldn't swear and go hysterical like Tang En did. He is still very calm, speak well-founded, well-organized. But also because of this, every word he said made Evan Dalgety feel extremely uncomfortable—I thought that Tony Twain, the god of plague, was sent away, and O'Neill who came here was a soft-spoken persimmon, but the honest man became furious harder to deal with.

He was silent for a few seconds, thinking about how to deal with it.

"Don't be nervous, Martin...Of course we know that you are the head coach of this team, but what Allen has done can be regarded as paving the way for you in advance. If the head coach has to do everything by himself, then you have to Tired?" Evan laughed, trying to ease the atmosphere, but he found that no one else in the room was smiling except himself. So after a few dry laughs, he also shut his mouth in embarrassment.

O'Neill didn't save face for Mr. Chairman this time. He responded with a straight face: "Yes, you will notify me after you have reached an agreement with the opposing club and the player in private. Just like Pepe, right? ?”

Allen raised his head and looked at the two people who were confronting across the desk.

And Evan's expression changed, he glanced at Allen, then turned back to look at O'Neill. He noticed that O'Neill was also looking at him... no, staring at him might be more appropriate.

O'Neill is right, he is the head coach of this team, he should be responsible for all transfers and exercise power. But Evan Dalgety has been suppressed by Tang En for so many years, and he has long been unable to restrain his desire to control this team. In his opinion, he is the owner of the club, and he should be able to express his opinions on team affairs, and even get involved directly... If it is not possible to say that he is too much. The chairmen of so many clubs in this world like to meddle in team affairs, even the Premier League is no exception, why can't they do it?

No matter how good the head coach is, he still works for me. I am the real boss here. Have you guys figured this out?

He suddenly didn't want to smile at a wage earner anymore, and sometimes he had to show the majesty of the chairman of the club.

"Well, you know about it now, Mr. O'Neill."

Evan Dalgety put on a posture to see off the guests.

O'Neill stood in front of him and stared at him for a while before turning around and walking away. He didn't say a word to Evan Dalgety because he felt there was no need to say anything.

※ ※ ※

The speculation and hype about why Tony Twain left Nottingham Forest at his peak had become less and less. Some are even optimistic that, like Shankly's sudden resignation from Liverpool at a time when he was supposed to be making a splash, Nottingham Forest, after a brief period of turmoil, will be as brilliant as Paisley's Liverpool. Prospects. After all, Tang En has laid a solid foundation.

Continuing to speculate on people who have left is meaningless now, so it's better to focus on new coach Martin O'Neill.

But there is one person who is against this idea.

When he first found out that Tang En did not renew his contract with the club, Pierce Bruce was surrounded by emotions of shock, anger, disappointment, and doubt just like everyone else. As a reporter, his curiosity gradually overtook several other emotions, which accumulated in the following days. Ever since the Forest team played a warm-up match with England last week, the doubts accumulated in his heart gradually surfaced, and his interest in "why Tony Twain didn't renew his contract" became more and more intense, even though he had already There are no media investigating this matter anymore, and he still decided to find out the truth.

It's just that he wanted to investigate, but couldn't start. Although he has interviewed with the Forest team many times, he still doesn't know much about the senior management of the Forest team. On the one hand, he was always hanging out with Tony Twain, on the other hand, Evan Dalgety was really low-key at that time. When Tang En and Evan were together, they always looked happy and harmonious, making others envious. He collected information everywhere, but he couldn't find any information on the two most critical aspects.

Tony Twain kept silent, and Nottingham Forest seemed to have forgotten that they ever had such a head coach, and no news about Twain ever came out.

Nottingham Forest is now Evan Dalgety's club alone, and it is much more convenient for him to control the club than those boards of directors.

Bruce has been busy collecting relevant information everywhere these days. Fortunately, his boss supports him, because they all know that Tang En's resignation is not a simple matter. There must be some inside information that he does not want others to know, otherwise the person involved will not Will keep silent.

And once these truths are revealed, it will definitely become big news that shakes English football. So this thing must be done.

Bruce was so busy that he almost forgot that he was going to interview O'Neill. This was the first time that Martin O'Neill was interviewed after he became the head coach of Nottingham Forest. Being mentioned in an exclusive interview can be regarded as an important interview task.

It was when his colleagues in the office reminded him that he was so obsessed with the hide-and-seek game with Tony Twain that he remembered to call O'Neill to confirm the interview.

No matter how Tony Twain left his job, no matter what the story behind the club in charge of Evan Dougherty, Pierce Bruce put away his curiosity at this moment, tidied up his clothes, and knocked on the forest team leader Coach's door.

Martin O'Neill is waiting in his seat for the visit of this influential reporter in Nottingham.

"Hello, Mr. O'Neill. I hope I didn't interrupt your work." Bruce put down the interview bag, got up and shook hands with O'Neill.

"No, Mr. Bruce, my work is over." O'Neal smiled gently.

Bruce sat down and began to interview the new head coach who had been considered to be or was in Twain's shadow. However, the interview did not follow Bruce's planned steps. He asked a question first: "I have been the head coach of Nottingham Forest for two months. How does it feel, Mr. O'Neill?"

Normally, O'Neill would have nodded and said: "It feels good, everyone is very supportive of my work, I have a lot of support..."

But O'Neill hesitated for a moment but shook his head. "It was harder than I thought."

The professional acumen made Burus immediately grasp the key point. He followed this sentence and temporarily changed the question he had prepared before: "Is it because Tony Twain's influence is too great?"

O'Neill continued to shake his head: "It's not." He seemed to be talking a lot about sex today, and Bruce didn't interrupt, just guiding him to continue talking.

"Sometimes when you are outside, you can't see clearly, and you think it's beautiful. But when you walk in, you will find that your thoughts are wrong." O'Neill said this very mysteriously, "I used to think that I had I have mental preparation and rich experience, but now I still feel that I made a mistake in my judgment.”

Listening to such inexplicable words, Bruce's mind was running at high speed, guessing what O'Neill meant. Then he asked tentatively: "Are you referring to Pepe's transfer?"

He was right.

O'Neill shrugged: "When you knew that Pepe might be leaving, you found out that he was already confirmed to be traded to AC Milan. What did you think?"

Bruce's heart skipped a beat, he seemed to have grasped something, and the fog that had plagued him before was slowly dissipating.

"I'm sorry, Mr. O'Neill. I remember that you are the head coach of the team. How could you be the last to be notified of such a thing?" Bruce continued to pursue the victory.

"I don't know why, that's the truth. I was kept in the dark. Everyone knew that Pepe had already reached an agreement with AC Milan. Only I didn't know. I also talked to Pepe once, I was rejected for granted. I can't recover from this situation. Now when the season is about to start, we have lost the most important central defender, and I don't even know who we will continue to lose." O'Neill finally found an outlet for his resentment mouth. "Looking at all the transfer rumors in the media about Forest players, they are still here, I really want to thank God."

"Did you read the report of the meeting between Mr. Allen Adams and Michael Dawson, Mr. Bruce?"

Bruce nodded. As a sports reporter, of course he has to pay attention to the sports news that happens every day.

"Did you find out from that report?"

Bruce froze for a moment and then shook his head: "I have my own reporter friend, Mr. O'Neill. You know, we will communicate with each other..."

Martin O'Neill grinned when he heard this answer: "That's great. Even a reporter understands our team's signing goals before me, the head coach. Maybe I should hire some reporters to be scouts?"

Big problem.

Bruce thought so. If a head coach doesn't even know what kind of people the team is going to bring in until the end, it will be a big problem. He was completely bypassed, so who bypassed him...

It suddenly occurred to him that it was around this time last summer when Forest's right forward Aaron Lennon was sold to Inter Milan. At that time, Tony Twain went into a rage, and his snarls and swearing could even be heard throughout England. He was scolding Alan Adams for making an agreement with Inter Milan without asking for his consent at all, and surrendering Lennon. For this reason, he also suspended the contract renewal negotiations with the team. There was a lot of trouble at the time, but there was no sound afterwards. There was nothing unusual about the three of them together on the outside.

"Football is a sport that requires a detailed plan. I signed a four-year contract with the club. I have a long-term plan. Everyone must agree to buy and sell. But the current situation is that before signing None of the demands were fulfilled..."

When Bruce was in a daze, O'Neill continued to talk, which was faithfully recorded by Bruce's recorder.

"I want a stable defense, but they sold Pepe. I want a young central defender with potential, and they go to Dawson. They don't even look at the candidates I recommend..."

Bruce had to interrupt O'Neill: "I'm sorry, Mr. O'Neill. Who do you mean by 'they'?"

"Club chairman and business executive, who else? I may now know why Tony left at the peak of his glory..."

The last piece of fog in my heart finally dissipated. Bruce made sure he got the whole point.

"I chose Nottingham Forest because I came from here. I hope to continue the glory of the Forest team. But now it seems that I think everything too well."

There was deep exhaustion in these words. Although it had only been two months, Martin O'Neill was exhausted from torture.

There is no need to ask the following questions anymore, those questions prepared in advance are worthless in front of such a hot topic. Pierce Bruce was so shocked by the thoughts in his mind that he didn't have the mood to continue the interview. He got up and said goodbye to O'Neill, and prepared to rush back to write this interview that would definitely cause a sensation.

"The head coach of Nottingham Forest bombarded the top management of the club!"

"Martin O'Neill: I'm ostracized!"

"The inside story of Pepe's deal!"

There is still a lot of information that he needs to collect everywhere, but this time it is different. He has a direction and knows where to look.

"Goodbye, I'm glad you accepted my interview, Mr. O'Neill. Good luck."

O'Neill got up to see the reporter off, and he also said: "Goodbye, Mr. Bruce. Good luck."