Chapter 111: Twain’s Return Part 1
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The Ukrainian player Rebrov had been depressed for the past week. He frowned during training and back at the hotel. After seeing the new manager's way of handling things, he already gave up all hope regarding his future in the team. After this match, he was prepared ask his agent to help him find another team to transfer to.
The manager, Mr. Twain, spoke to many people on the team individually. From Wes Morgan, who had just been transferred over to the first team, to Michael Dawson and Andy Reid, who were about to leave the team. Only he had not been approached by Twain.
He was thinking he had already been abandoned by the manager.
The next day would be their match against Crystal Palace, and the team only did some simple drills on set piece play for 40 minutes before ending the training. Rebrov frowned again, as he left Wilford disappointedly.
Seeing the back view of Rebrov walking toward the parking lot with his head lowered, Tang En said to Walker, who was beside him, "For the match tomorrow, I think we should still let the Ukrainian guy be the starting striker."
"Of course. You chased Taylor to the reserve team, which leaves us with only three possible candidates to be at the front line. Wescarr's abilities are limited, which leaves us no choice but to put Johnson and the Ukrainian guy on the starting line up.
Hearing Walker say this, Tang En chuckled. The day before, Tang En and Walker specifically went to watch the reserve team's match. Taylor was part of the starting line up, and he managed to maintain his good performance throughout the match even after he scored a goal. However, he had no intentions of moving Taylor back to the first team. Tang En wanted Taylor to continue training with the reserve team. His headers were definitely crucial at times to score goals, with the team currently lacking in offensive power and a lack of strikers to be on the starting line up. Walker did not understand Tang En's plans, but he trusted that Tang En knew what he was doing.
On Saturday night, outside Nottingham Forest's home grounds. The team's consistently poor performance had also affected the seat occupancy of the stadium. In the matches before this, the average seat occupancy of City Ground Stadium was less than 20,000, with a large portion of the viewing platform still empty. Under such circumstances, the players were also unable to play well in the matches.
However, today was different. Under the dark starry sky, City Ground Stadium had already turned into a sea of red.
Reporters from Nottingham's local television stations were able the capture on camera the sight of fans rushing to the stadium from all directions, waiting for their turns to enter the stadium. The large crowd formed several long red snakes and waved unstoppably while singing the fans' songs loudly. There were even fans who were shouting "Tony! Tony! Tony!" excitedly at the camera.
Even the businesses of the hawkers stationed outside the stadium, which sold various club merchandises, regained much patronage.
A reporter stood in front of the camera with a mike in his hand, while covering one side of his ears with the other hand. Trying his best to suppress the fans' shouting with his own voice, he said, "Did you see this? City Ground Stadium has reawakened! I believe… believe that our Nottingham Forest will also awaken from its deep slumber!"
A BBC reporter, on the other hand, was on the other side of the snaking queues doing his news report for that night. "Just changing the manager is enough to ignite the fans' passion! I believe Nottinghamians must have missed the sight that they have seen today! In the second half of the previous season, most of Nottingham Forest's home games were like this! The failed Collymore has already been forgotten by the people, as the fans welcome back the young manager, Tony Twain, who had led the team all the way into the playoff matches."
Just as he was saying this, a plump person suddenly jumped in between him and his camera. He closed in on the camera and made a drunk belch, before taking in a deep breath and shouted with his eyes wide open, "Nottingham Forest will definitely win! Long live Tony! At night… burp… buy me to a drink!"
Not waiting for the reporter to react in time, the plump man exited the camera amidst the loud laughter of his companions. The alert cameraman immediately shifted the camera toward him and his companions, videoing their back view.
A group of fans wearing Nottingham Forest's red jersey walked together, waving the scarves in their hands while singing loudly some song which they composed themselves.
"Oh oh oh! Generous Tony! Oh oh oh! He treats us to drinks, we love him! He brings us victory, we love him! Forest Forest! Tony Twain!"
While wiping off the sweat on his forehead, the reporter continued with his work. "Erm… reality has proven to us that Manager Tony Twain is regarded very highly by the Forest fans." He caught a glance of another group of drunk fans walking unsteadily behind the cameraman, before hastily ending his report, "This is BBC news reporter, Larry Jackson, reporting from Nottingham's City Ground Stadium. Thank you for watching! Goodbye!"
Even shutting the door tightly had little effect of blocking out the loud singing voices coming from the viewing platform outside. Compared to such an excited group of Nottingham fans, the people inside the changing room were extremely calm. Of course, they only appeared so on the surface.
Assistant manager Des Walker was announcing the starting line up for the match, starting from the goalkeeper.
"Darren Ward, John Thompson, Davy Oyen, Michael Dawson, Wes Morgan, Brynjar Gunnarsson, Jacob Burns, Andy Reid, Gareth Williams, David Johnson, as well as…" He finally called the last person.
Rebrov sat on the chair with his head lowered, as if he held no hopes at all. Then, he heard Walker say, "…Serhiy Rebrov. It will be these 11 people!"
He raised his head immediately. I actually made the starting line up?! However, after giving it some thought, he finally understood—the top scorer Gareth Taylor has been relegated to the reserve team. Now, the team lacked players for the front line. It was therefore a given that he would be inside the starting line up.
After announcing the starting line up, the changing room became filled with the debating voices of the players. Walker hit the tactics board with force, signaling to the players that the manager wanted to have a word with them.
Waiting for the changing room to quiet down, Twain shouted, "Crystal Palace is ranked third from the last, while we are ranked fourth from the last! What does this match mean? I don't want all of you to feel that 'ah, things are not that bad'. I hope all of you know clearly that, dammit, things are already so bad'! Out of the 22 rounds of matches, we have only won four of them, but we lost 13 of them! This result is extremely horrible! Before this match, you guys were on a six-loss streak. I don't care what you guys have been thinking about, but in any case I've had enough of losing, and I don't want to continue losing! Which one of you here doesn't mind losing, raise your hands!" He flailed his arms around, but none of the people listening raised their hands.
"Very good! It seems like all of you don't want to lose anymore." Tang En nodded his head and put down his arm, before glancing at Rebrov, who had his head lowered. "I am a new manager. I don't care how you performed before this, and don't care what the previous manager promised you…"
Rebrov nodded his head. He was listening very intently.
"I will only look at your performances from this match onward. If you perform well, you'll be part of the starting line up! If not, you will be a reserve! It's just that simple. If you want to play in matches, then you better tighten up that winder behind your ass!" Tang En made a twisting gesture, and everyone felt their back tighten for a split second.
Doughty wore a suit and a tie, and was dressed much more formal than his usual office wear. He sat down in the VIP lounge, prepared to watch the match. His financial advisor Allan Adams had already flown back to America after settling the acquisition of Nottingham Forest's shares. There was nothing else left for him to do in England, and Doughty also needed someone to look after his business in America.
Actually, Edward detested watching matches in the lounge, because all the stadiums in England had a rule: anyone watching the football match in the lounge had to wear a tie. This was a rule to be observed strictly, and even if the president of the United States were to come, he had to adhere to it as well.
Doughty did not like to wear a tie as a result of an incident when he was young. He detested everything that tightened around his neck…
However, he was currently the chairman of the club. Therefore, he had to be present at the stadium for all the home matches. Of course, this was the case even when the team performed poorly and had low morale.
He could only try his best to loosen his tie as much as possible. By doing so, he would feel slightly better.
The middle-aged man seated beside him was the opponent team, Crystal Palace's chairman, mobile phone seller Simon Jordan.
Different from Doughty, his tie was wrapped tightly around his neck. He wore an extremely neat suit and was very particular about his clothes.
Before this, when the two of them shook hands and greeted each other, Chairman Jordan did not like the way Doughty was dressed, and spoke with an extremely arrogant attitude. Even though his team was ranked even lower than Nottingham Forest, it still did not prevent this man from saying, in an interview before the match, that his team would definitely beat Nottingham Forest and climb the ranks from here onward. He even tactfully insulted Doughty, as he felt that an American like him that did not understand football should not have meddled with English football.
Faced with all these words, Edward's only reaction was to laugh it off. But who knew about the raging flames inside his heart?
Dammit Tony! You must win this match! We definitely, definitely can't lose to this phone-selling b*stard!
When Crystal Palace's manager, Steve Kember, saw that Nottingham Forest's forward standing in the kick off circle was that useless Ukrainian player, Rebrov, he laughed. Afterwards, he said to his assistant manager, Terry Bullivant, "Terry, looks like we don't have to worry about our backline defense in this match anymore."
It was almost halfway through the season, and the disastrous performance of Nottingham Forest thus far was able to tell the various managers from League One a reality, and that was that the "Premier League-level shooter", Serhiy Rebrov, who had once been held in high regard, was an utter and complete fake!
As long as he was on the field, Nottingham Forest's opponents could focus entirely on offense, because this 29-year-old forward could not find where the goalpost was located on the field.
The progress of the match also proved this point. Rebrov, who was positioned at the front line, was completely unable to find the right spot to shoot after being marked by big and tall English defenders.
Tang En was shaking his head on the manager's seat, and said, "That Ukrainian has already completely lost all confidence. He doesn't even dare to shoot."
Walker nodded his head in agreement.
Many professional football players have had similar experiences of a loss of confidence after consecutive poor performances, thereby heading toward failure. Serhiy Rebrov was also in the midst of embarking on the path leading toward darkness. If nobody pulled him out of it, then he would continue sinking deeper.
Although that has nothing to do with me… but that would affect this match's results. What I want is victory, and you, Rebrov, are the key player for it!