When the Nottingham Forest team flew back to London from Lisbon, the players did not smile. It had been a defeat in the away game, which was quite different from the away game loss to Villarreal CF. No matter what, they had known that losing to Villarreal would not stop the team from breaking out of the group stage. Therefore, after one night, the players had quickly recovered from their anger and chatted and laughed on the plane.
It was different this time.
Losing to Sporting Lisbon meant that they had completely lost the UEFA Europa League that season. There was no hope for a championship. As a result, no one could laugh on the plane.
There were currently many young players on the Forest team. Some of them had just participated in a top league and a European tournament for the first time. There was an advantage to such a team: they would be deeply struck by their failure. They would not take it lightly. Such a failure would continue to affect them for a long time.
Twain still had a straight face. He was different from the players. It was not because he had lost a game or a UEFA Europa League, but because he felt stupid. A little success made him complacent and lose his head. He had wanted to claim the title of the UEFA Europa League, but he had not considered his and the team’s current abilities. Now that he thought about it, he realized how ridiculous he had been when he had bragged to Dunn. He wondered if Dunn had thought the same thing.
In his view, it was not that the players did not do a good job, but that as a manager, he had sought the wrong objective. He had been blinded by his hubris.
Twain was in a bad mood, so no one was willing to deal with him. Next to him, Kerslake glanced at him several times but did not know what to say. Eventually, he just sighed and said nothing.
The team flew back to England and returned to Nottingham in silence.
Their European games of this season were all over.
※※※
When the team arrived in Nottingham, Twain announced that the team would be dismissed on the spot for a half-day break. They would resume their training the next morning. Despite a league game three days later, Twain was not in a hurry gather the team for their training immediately. After a big game, he wanted the players to rest for a while and regain their strength.
Of course, that was only one of the reasons. The other reason was that Twain needed to think about what the Forest team was going to do for the rest of the season.
When Twain had previously contemplated such things, he would go to the bar to think and drink. Later, after Dunn came, Twain had been more willing to discuss things with Dunn at home.
This was no exception.
Dunn quietly listened to Twain’s doubts and then asked, “How many points does the Forest team have now?”
“Forty-seven, and Liverpool has forty-four.” Twain remembered those figures very clearly. “But they are short a game.”
Dunn nodded. He talked more now, compared to when he had first arrived in England. Twain was happy that he could change a person, even just a little. “And Everton?” Dunn asked.
“Fifty-one points; a four-point difference. Third in the league is Arsenal with sixty-one points. It’s a gap of ten points with Everton.”
“The top four in the league are eligible to participate in the UEFA Champions League,” Dunn said. “A four-point gap shouldn’t be too much for you, right?”
Twain thought for a moment with his head bowed and nodded. “I understand. The next nine rounds will be a battle of us versus Liverpool and Everton.”
“Don’t forget Charlton and Middlesbrough,” Dunn cautioned.
Twain waved his hand. “I don’t place much importance on them.”
Dunn chuckled a little.
Twain stared at him strangely, “What are you laughing about?”
“Nothing.” Dunn shook his head. The smile was gone from his face. But Twain did not let it go. He continued to stare at him. Finally, Dunn put up his hand in surrender. “It’s just… you just lost an important game and now you’re so confident.”
Twain scratched his head, “I thought about it for a long time on the plane. No, actually, I’ve been thinking about it in my hotel bed for a long time since we lost the game. You were right, Dunn. But you stopped trying to persuade me. You wanted me to learn the hard way on my own?”
Dunn’s lips twitched a little, but he still did not say anything.
“Now come to think of it, I was very foolish at that time. But fortunately, we lost early. If we had lost in the semi-finals, I would have ended up empty-handed for the season.” Twain sat at the dining table and looked the cutlery in his hands. The silver metal gleamed a little under the light. He then looked up and found that Dunn had been looking at him. He laughed self-deprecatingly. “What’s the saying? Better late than never.”
Dunn nodded to show that he understood. Then he shook his head again. “There’s something you are right about. Football can’t be planned.”
※※※
Twain tried his best to seem confident. However, in the 30th round of the league tournament, the weary Forest team was completely out of shape. They lost 0:2 to Tottenham Hotspur. He had lost a great opportunity to gain more points.
During that round, Tony Twain’s two rivals had a direct match. It was the start of the Merseyside derby at Anfield Stadium.
Regardless of the results and ranking of the two teams in the league, those things had no reference value for the Merseyside derby.
After 90 minutes of fierce fighting, Rafael Benítez’s Reds defeated Moyes’ Everton.
After selling Gravesen, Everton had not made up for it in the winter transfer. They were not Liverpool’s opponents in that away game. They were beaten in the first half by 0:2. In the second half, Everton launched a frenzied counterattack. Perhaps they would not care if the match was so fierce that it affected the entire season. For the Derby opponents, this game was more important than a season’s league.
Red and blue were the two most traditional colors in English football. The two colors could almost be regarded as arch rivals in any city, such as the red Manchester United and the blue Manchester City, the red Arsenal and the blue Chelsea, the red Liverpool and the blue Everton.
Despite the brilliant success of the Liverpool Football Club, Everton had a much earlier history in the city of Liverpool than the Liverpool club did. Unsurprisingly, Everton was unwilling to lose to Liverpool. Even in an away game, they would not be willing.
In the second half, Everton started a fierce counterattack that made Liverpool feel like they could not withstand it. They scored a goal halfway through. But they were slightly less lucky. The ball bounced out after another shot hit the goal beam at the last moment.
When the referee blew the final whistle, the score on the electronic screen was set at 2:1, and Liverpool won on their home ground.
As a result, the gap between the Forest team and Everton had not changed, but Liverpool caught up with the Forest team with 47 points. They then relied on a weak goal difference advantage over the Forest team to rank fifth. The Forest team fell to the sixth place.
The seventh-ranked Charlton had 43 points, which was four points away from Forest.
It was really a situation in which three teams grappled for the spot in the UEFA Champions League.
※※※
The match against Tottenham Hotspur was held a little bit earlier than the Merseyside derby. When the result of the Merseyside derby came out, Twain was very depressed. He knew he had lost an excellent opportunity. If the Forest team had beaten Tottenham Hotspur at home, then they would only be one point away from Everton now, and would still maintain a three-point advantage over Liverpool. Even if Liverpool won in its make-up match, they would still have the same points. This could be crucial for the last few rounds of the hurtle phase.
It was too late to say anything now. Another chance had been missed. Besides, the team’s condition was really not good. There was no way to fight against Tottenham Hotspur, who took advantage of their exhaustion.
The loss of the game caused the media to resume their speculation on the subject of “The end of the young manager.” Sports media might be the most ruthless and effective of all the media in the world. Because the sports competition itself determined the hero through the outcome of victory or defeat. When one performed well, one received everyone’s praise. No matter how fulsome the flattery was, they would pile it on. But if one lost, no matter how good one’s performance was before, there would be many people who blamed and reduce them to nothing.
This world was so cruel; a victory would always be a victory and a defeat would always be considered a defeat. A draw was the most unremarkable result and the most meaningless.
Twain had seen such matters in the media two years ago. The winner would dominate and the loser would be powerless. When he became a manager and experienced those things first hand, he had not felt indignant about it. Instead, he could make use of the media to achieve some of his goals.
Just like this time.
The Forest team was eliminated from the UEFA Europa League, suffered two defeats, and did not win for three rounds in the Premier League. In the reporters’ gifted writing, these results were described as the end of the road for the Forest team.
Surprisingly, Twain did not return fire in his own column to counter those remarks.
There was a twelve-day period until the next round of the league tournament. The competition for the national teams was being held during that time. For those big football clubs, this was the time when the FIFA virus spread. However, for such a small club like Nottingham Forest, it was a good time to recuperate and regroup.
Compared to Liverpool and even Everton, the national footballers in the Forest team were pitifully few. Edwin van der Sar remained the main goalkeeper for the Netherlands national team. He would play with the Netherlands team in the qualifier for next year’s World Cup. Of the four main defenders, Hierro had long retired from the national team and Matthew Upson and Leighton Baines had not been selected for the English national team. Not to mention Pascal Chimbonda; the French national team did not have a position for him yet.