Chapter 107: Strategies for Manchester United

Tony Donne personally confirmed his future in Nottingham Forest. He would not leave Nottingham, which made the Forest fans a little relieved. But the rumors in the media about him leaving the city stadium did not disappear immediately. The Times swore that Donne would definitely leave the city stadium in four years and seek another goal. At that time, his contract expired and he could leave freely without having to bear high liquidated damages. I believe that countless wealthy clubs will compete for people at that time.

Done didn't come to Manchester United, but Manchester United did not stop looking for a successor for Ferguson. Because after this season, the old coach Ferguson will definitely retire. This news has not been officially announced yet. Most people would rather think that this is just a coach's confusion. At the end of the season, he will find that he is actually inseparable from football and Manchester United. Then he took back his life and decided to stay at Old Trafford. In this way, many people can breathe a sigh of relief - except for his arch rivals.

Both Donn and Ferguson confirmed their future, but the story between the two did not end there, but had just begun.

After playing the last game of the Champions League group stage, both teams qualified with the first place in the group. Three days later, the highlight will be - Nottingham Forest will challenge Manchester United away.

This is the only strong confrontation in that round of the league, and it is also a game that will be broadcast live nationwide.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

After playing the Celtics game, Donn reopened with Ferguson at a press conference. He claimed that he had no interest in who he was to be and intended to stimulate Ferguson.

Ferguson was not outdone and immediately responded: "When he works in this industry for twenty years, his wish will come true."

Outsiders really can't tell from the war of words between these two people that their personal relationship is still relatively harmonious...

These two people are typical "butt determines the head", where they say and do what they do.

When the two teams meet, the head coach can't always be the protagonist. The players of the two teams are also the target of countless people's attention.

Cristiano Ronaldo has said he would leave countless times, but in the end he stayed at Manchester United. He will be the sharp knife of Ferguson's fight against Nottingham Forest in this game. The reporter ran to interview him and wanted to hear his opinion on this game. Ronaldo seemed very low-key: "This is just a regular league game."

Although he was telling the truth, the game was meaningless. But the media were very dissatisfied, so they ran to ask Rooney. Rooney was a little hotter than Ronaldo: "We will beat Nottingham Forest at home, and I can't imagine we will lose at home."

Nani, a young man, seemed arrogant. “Who do you think is the biggest threat in the other team?” the reporter asked him. His answer was: “The whole team is not a threat.”

His words annoyed the players of the Forest team. Pepe was the first to stand up and expressed dissatisfaction with Nani: "I hope he has a chance to play, and I will let him know what a threat is."

Eastwood said: "I'm glad that the whole team has this mind, just as everyone wants their opponent to be an idiot." He scolded Nani as an idiot in a roundabout way.

George Wood is not a person who wants to have a quarrel with others. He is more willing to use a fierce foul to shut up. When he was entangled by reporters, he had to say: "I will know when the game is up."

What do you know?

He didn't say it, but I believe the media believe it-George Wood is going to give the bastards who look down on them!

The coaches’ verbal battles, the players’ verbal battles, and the supporters of both sides’ verbal battles are emerging one after another. This is a special scenery of professional football. All of these are preludes and are prelude scenes prepared for the climax of the final game.

Three days passed quickly. After Nottingham Forest returned from Glasgow Rangers, he only stayed in Nottingham for one day before setting off for Manchester again. For the team to prepare for the game, running around so frequently and intensively is not a good thing. The team cannot continue the systematic preparation training, but fortunately, it has decided to qualify early. So Forest has actually been preparing for the game against Manchester United since the last round of the league. The team made detailed arrangements for several major attack points of Manchester United in training. The team's offensive method is also reflected in training.

The only thing you need to worry about when running two away games in three days is the team's physical fitness.

Before the game, countless expert fans analyzed that Nottingham Forest will play their best stable counterattack at Old Trafford. After all, no team dares to play against Manchester United here, and the result will be without exception. They all die miserably...

But this time Tang En once again planned to do the opposite - he wanted to play this game in a way that no one could imagine.

"We're offensive." At the tactical preparation meeting the day before the game, Don said bluntly. "I bet Ferguson wouldn't have thought we had the courage to do so, so I asked you all to press on the offense and start the game with a win. The earlier the goal is, the better it is for us." He snapped his fingers.

"Boss, what if there is no goal in the opening game?" Eastwood asked the question.

"Slow down the pace, take into account defense, and then continue to attack."

It seems that Tang En is determined to use attack to conquer the Dream Theater.

Because of the attack, Shahin replaced Thiago as the starter in this game. Nottingham Forest's formation also changed from parallel 442 to diamond 442. Two wing forwards will frequently intervene in the attack. When the two sides are in a stalemate, the two full-backs will stay in the backcourt to participate in defense, and rarely come forward to assist. At the same time, George Wood is responsible for the defensive responsibility in this game, and all the offensive work is handed over to the teammates in the frontcourt.

Although it was an offense, Tang En still did not forget to defend the foundation. So it was almost impossible to see Tang En's team completely ignore the defense offense... Maybe he would do this in the last five minutes of the game and his team was still behind with one goal.

Ferguson really didn't expect Tony Donn to dare to play against Manchester United at Old Trafford. He thought Donn was a pragmatist. If he wanted to escape from Old Trafford, or even win, then defensive counterattack was obviously the most appropriate thing.

Although the outside world is dissatisfied with his persistence in the main tactic of defensive counterattack, he feels cowardly and timid. But Tang En has never been shaken by criticism from the outside world.

Ferguson felt that he knew Tony Don very well, but this time he was still wrong.

Before the game, Wood and Manchester United captain Gary Neville guessed the coin, and he guessed that he lost, so Manchester United got the right to pick the side. And Nottingham Forest got the right to kick the ball. In fact, getting the right to kick the ball is a good thing for Donne's Forest team, because they can control the football at their feet from the beginning of the game.

There was a misunderstanding in the outside world before: Nottingham Forest never cared about ball possession rate, and they took out data as proof - Nottingham Forest's ball possession rate was lower than that of the opponent in 90% of the game, no matter what the result was.

But in fact, Tang En just doesn't care about the ineffective ball control that repeatedly puts his feet in the backcourt to make up his ball control rate. He emphasizes that he can control the ball in the opponent's halftime in the end. As long as he can score a goal in the end, even if he only passes two feet from the start to the end. So although his ball control rate is always less than his opponent, he can win.

Watch other teams’ games. Most people may have this idea - when football is not under the feet of the players of that team, their supporters will start to worry about the opponent scoring. Because it is really dangerous to let football be controlled by the opponent at the feet.

But when watching Nottingham Forest game, Forest fans are used to the opponent's possession of the ball while their side defends. In their eyes, once the football falls under the opponent's feet, the ones they should worry about are actually the opponent's fans. They will definitely come up to attack, and if they come up, there will be time behind them, that is the opportunity for Nottingham Forest.

However, this game held in Old Trafford today will change the view of Forest fans.

After the kickoff, Nottingham Forest controlled the football at his feet, but did not rush to launch a fast attack. Instead, he seemed to be casually stumbled near the middle circle. In the past, when Nottingham Forest played, there were few scenes of players falling back and forth in the backcourt, because Don Ng thought it was unnecessary to fall in the backcourt, and while losing the opportunity, he also wore off his own sharpness. So his game pace has always been very fast.

Now, they are leisurely downing their feet at Old Trafford Stadium and passing the football backwards. Finally, the football was passed by Woodgate to Akinfeyev. Boos on Nottingham Forest began to sound in the stands at Old Trafford Stadium.

Berbatov rushed up and made a move to enter the penalty area to cut off the ball at Akinfeyev's feet. Behind him, Rooney, Ronaldo and Tvez all pressed on.

Akinfeyev did not give Berbatov a chance to intercept the ball. He directly passed the ball to the frontcourt with a long pass when the two were still ten meters away.

"Long pass! This is very consistent with the style of Nottingham Forest!" the commentator joked.

In this game, Donn sent out the people on the front line not tall center Rikic or Ibissevic, but former Manchester United player Van Nistrui, and his partner was Eastwood.

Because Fernandez was injured in the previous game, Lennon played the left forward in this game, and Bentley suspended the game with a cumulative yellow card. So the right forward was replaced by Abanglaho. Donn hopes to use the speed of these two people to attack Manchester United's side defense. Van Nistruy still received the ball under Carrick's defense. He also used his skills and experience to control the ball firmly at his feet, waiting for his teammates to come forward to respond. Carrick tried hard behind his back and wanted to intercept the ball. Unfortunately, his position was gone, and unless he was fouled, he would definitely not be able to intercept the ball.

Just when he was about to foul, Van Nistroy passed the football with the target of Shahin.

After Shahin received the ball, he passed a diagonal pass pointing to the side.   A whirlwind blows by, and it is Abanglaho!

Abonrajo is very fast. Manchester United's defensive player here is Evra, who is also a fast player. The two of them are considered to be matched by chess.

Before Abanglaho received the ball, Shahin's straight pass was shoveled out of the sideline by Evra who rushed over.

After seeing this scene off the court, Ferguson smiled. This is the Nottingham Forest he is familiar with. It seems that today's forest will not be different from usual.

The characteristic of the Forest team is that they have more direct passes. They like penetrating passes very much. Although the success rate is not very good, as long as they succeed once, it will be fatal.

In order to deal with such direct passes, Ferguson did not play Scholes, but set up two midfielders in the midfield with outstanding running skills and focused on defense. At the same time, the defense line was required to pay attention to assisting defense protection and could not give the Forest a chance to play a straight pass. On the offense, once the Forest's straight passes were intercepted, they immediately fought back. Carrick and Hargreaves were actually not the kind of passers who could organize the offense, so Manchester United's main attackers were Ronaldo and Rooney who changed to the midfield. They were responsible for bringing the football to the frontcourt and then passing it to Berbatov or Tvez.

Now it seems that they are doing well. Shahin's straight pass was destroyed by the quick-responsive Evra.

Nottingham Forest's possession after the kickoff was ended by Eastwood's long shot from the top of the penalty area. The ball he shot deviated from the goal.

Perhaps some people think that Nottingham Forest is such an active offense, just because they got the kick-off right, so there is no need to be in vain... But in fact, the Forest soon lets them know that they were wrong.

After Manchester United's shot was saved by Akinfeev, he did not take a big kick, but threw the ball to launch an attack. Wood passed the ball to Shahin, and Shahin made another diagonal pass, but this time the direction was Lennon on the left.

Thirty-five-year-old Gary Neville did not pounce on Evra to tackle. He knew that he was absolutely at a disadvantage in speed, but his experience could help him deal with Lennon. So he chose to retreat slowly and not give Lennon the room to sprint.

This move worked very well. Although Lennon successfully received the ball, he found that he could not directly break through the Manchester United captain's defense. Nottingham Forest's fast break could not be hit, so he could only pass the football back and slowly grind it.

Ferguson sat on the coach's seat, chewing gum in his mouth, which was his signature gesture. He would do this when he was sure. After watching Nottingham Forest's performance in the first five minutes, he became more confident in winning the game.

It's no different from the previous Nottingham Forest.   In another five minutes, if they can't score, the guy Tony Don will definitely command the team to retreat and wait for an opportunity to hit Manchester United's counterattack.

Ferguson is not worried about this kind of play. Their training for a week has been arranged based on the tactical characteristics of the Forest team. Once the Forest team cannot score the goal in the first ten minutes and cannot introduce the game into the track they are used to, then it will be Tony's turn for the unlucky person.

After the game, you will strive to score first, then shrink your defense, lure the opponent out, and then rely on tenacious and solid defense and speed to fight the opponent's counterattack.

Ferguson has studied the Forests' tactics and game habits quite thoroughly, and he firmly believes that Tony Don can't escape from his palm.

Now Ferguson suddenly regrets why he didn't make a bet with Tony Tang'en when he won the game - if he wins, the two will sign an agreement, agreeing to retire after the end of this season, and Tang Tang will take charge of the coach.
Chapter completed!