Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The most speculated match in the current league was obviously the Manchester Derby where Manchester City was challenging Manchester United on away ground.
Before this game, Manchester United had the support of all of the Nottingham Forest fans because their loss would give Nottingham Forest a chance to overtake them.
Mourinho was asked this question in his pre-match interview and was proud and arrogant as usual.
“Nottingham Forest? What does it have to do with me? This is the Manchester derby, not the Nottingham derby… Of course we will win, but not for anyone else… Whether it’s the Manchester derby or anything else, victory is what I’m after.”
He refused to answer questions regarding Nottingham Forest or Tony Twain.
Despite this, Nottingham Forest fans would still be supporting Manchester United because they would definitely not support their direct rivals, Manchester City.
Twain did not express any opinions about this match either. Ever since his return, he had rarely expressed his opinions about other people openly, even if it was his old rival, Mourinho.
However, it was unrealistic to say that he did not think much of this match. How could he not care about the match that concerned his own team?
It was just that he did not have the time to care about the match, because the Manchester derby and Nottingham Forest’s match were taking place at the same time.
David Kerslake was sitting in the coach’s seat with his headphones on. He was tuned in to the radio, listening to the latest progressions from the other match. Once there was news, he would definitely tell Twain.
“Manchester City scored; they are leading… D*amn it! What is Mourinho’s team doing?”
That was how he complained when he heard the news of Manchester City scoring.
The cheers from the Nottingham Forest fans were also reduced.
Twain had his hands on his hips. He stood by the field, not saying anything.
After around three minutes had passed, there was news coming on again. This time, even before Kerslake revealed the news, there was a series of cheers bursting from the stands.
At last, there was a smile on Twain’s face.
“Manchester United have equalized the score!” Kerslake excitedly shouted at Twain. In this chaotic environment, he had to raise his voice to ensure that Twain was able to understand what he was saying.
It was only a brief moment of attention for Manchester United; then Twain focused his attention on the field again. Nottingham Forest was challenging West Ham on away ground so that was not an easy game either.
The score was now 0:0. It was ten minutes after the start of the second half, and the two teams were in a deadlock on the field. The West Ham fans were delighted and chanted, “Even if Manchester City loses, you can’t win anyway! Trying to go to Europe? No way!”
Twain was preparing to do some substitutions, replacing the exhausted Balotelli with Agbonlahor, while making adjustments to move Chen Jian into the defensive midfielder role, allowing Wood to advance a little.
Because Chen Jian displayed outstanding performance in this half of the season, his opponents had already researched him. He had suffered many violations in this competition, so why not allow him to retreat a little instead? Let him distance himself from the opposing defenders and allow him to display his rhythm control.
Chen Jian’s and Wood’s characteristics were indeed similar, but under Twain’s coaching, the two did not have a conflict being on the field at the same time. On the contrary, they could combine to become a dual force. Once one has been thwarted, the other would take over his job and continue to lead the advance of the team. This was the advantage of a “dual force”.
Twain’s adjustments saw effect immediately. West Ham’s defense was previously focused on Chen Jian but had now shifted to Wood. Although the playing styles of the two were similar, there was a difference in their capabilities. The opponents were able to defend against Chen Jian but it might not be as easy to defend against Wood.
Wood launched a sudden attack while West Ham United had not yet adjusted. His forceful advancement through the middle path messed up the defensive lines of West Ham and then he passed the ball to Agbonlahor who only came onto the field for a few minutes. Agbonlahor broke into the penalty area and shot the ball towards the goal. The West Ham goalkeeper dived for the ball and hit it out, but this allowed Mitchell, who was coming over from the other side, to take advantage and easily shoot the ball into the goal.
That was when the Nottingham Forest fans in the stands burst into a bigger cheer than the one they gave for the Manchester United goal just now. The people at the coaching seats let out a long sigh of relief. Tony Twain’s team excelled in playing from ahead so they had nothing much to worry about. Now more people were focusing on the match on the other field so they only needed Manchester United to win over Manchester City to allow Nottingham Forest to take the lead over Manchester City after the match and become sixth in the league.
This ranking meant that they would likely qualify for the European matches next season.
And Manchester City would be kicked down into the abyss.
Once Nottingham Forest took the lead, they were in full control of the match. The home team, West Ham, wanted to even the score but they were afraid to press forward to attack, worried that they would instead allow Nottingham Forest to score another goal. The commentator for the match was sighing; the match had become hopeless earlier than expected.
On the other field, the game had entered the most exciting phase.
The city derby between Manchester United and Manchester City, after Ferguson’s departure, had lost a lot of firepower. With Mourinho’s arrival, the two sites were again on each other’s toes. It was impossible for Mourinho, with his big mouth, to refrain from offending other people. Coupled with the inner meaning in the Derby, the firepower in the match was at its peak when Manchester United swiftly equalized the score, starting to progress in the other direction.
First, it was a player of Manchester City who did a slide tackle to a striker in Manchester United, making him fall onto the ground. This earned a yellow card for the offender. Following that, a Manchester United player tackled down another Manchester City player out of vengeance, but he was only given a verbal warning, which gave rise to dissatisfaction within the Manchester City’s players.
Subsequently, both sides kept playing dirty on the field, giving slide tackles and performing indecent acts for the ball. The head referee had to blow the whistle and give cards continuously.
In the 77th minute, the players of both sides finally clashed.
At that time, Manchester United’s midfielder passed a straight ball behind him, and Manchester City goalkeeper Josh Connor came out and pounced on the football, but Rooney, a 32-year-old veteran, was just as hot-tempered. He did not pull back and fiercely charged into Conner.
It was going to be exciting.
Connor slumped on the ground in pain, while Rooney did not have any intention to apologize as he stood up, patted his buttocks and moved on.
He was immediately surrounded by angry Manchester City players who saw their old team captain suffer. The Manchester United players came forward to gather as well, and the two sides bumped into each other aggressively.
The referee’s whistle was no longer able to calm them down and in the end, the coaches from both sides had to come onto the field to pull the players apart.
In the face of such a scene, if the referee gave yet another verbal warning and nothing else, this would only create more chaos on the field.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
So the referee raised his hand and gave one red card to Manchester City and two red cards to Manchester United, one of them for Rooney who started the whole chaos.
This refereeing naturally upset Mourinho, who roared angrily on the sidelines, accusing him of unfairness. If it were not for the assistant coach who quickly pulled him back down, he might have even been sent into the stands.
Manchester City coach Mark Brown was equally angry. He thought that his team was the victim throughout the entire situation, so why did he need to send out a player?
Clashes between the two sides, from the field to the coaching seats, were an integral part of the game. If there were no aggressive scenes in the City Derby, it would be easily forgotten by everyone.
※※※
The news about the conflict between Manchester City and Manchester United, including both sides needing to send out players, was immediately announced to Twain.
Kerslake’s excited expression was mirrored by the crowd and many were like him, happy about this news.
The best outcome would be Manchester United winning Manchester City, but after both sides going through this tough battle and injuring their stamina, Manchester United had to suffer their fair share of injury to get this pitiful victory. Then, Nottingham Forest would definitely be able to take advantage of this situation.
Now things were definitely progressing into the “best scenario” they had thought of.
There was also a smile on Twain’s face. It was clear that this was definitely the intended consequence for him.
He was not worried about Manchester United losing on the home field to Manchester City.
On this side, he stepped up his demands on the team’s offense. A one-goal lead was the most uninsured score in the world.
A series of Nottingham Forest attacks then paid off. Wood’s long-range shot scored through the goalmouth for West Ham United, with Nottingham Forest leading 2-0 at home. With less than ten minutes to go, Nottingham Forest taking down this match with a victory was a no-brainer.
But on the other side, the format of the game was much more dangerous.
At Old Trafford stadium, Manchester United’s attack was impacted since they had to send off two players. Manchester City’s moves grew aggressive because they thought that they had been subjected to unfair treatment. They actually pressed Manchester United all the way into their penalty area.
It angered Mourinho and he made a substitution. Instead of increasing the defensive strength, he replaced a defender with a striker, ensuring there were still two players on the striker line. Through this substitution, he wanted to express his ambition to the other Manchester team–we must win!
Then the morale of the Manchester United players was restored. Their potential was supposed to empower Manchester City and they were on the home field as well. Slowly, they took over the situation.
As the match entered injury time, Manchester United attacked Manchester City’s penalty area with their beautiful team coordination on the frontcourt. Lee Barnet, who was dribbling the ball, was tackled down onto the ground by the captain of Manchester City, Richards. The head referee gave a penalty kick without hesitation.
The penalty was a death sentence for Manchester City, giving a penalty kick during injury time. There would not even be time to allow them to even the score.
Manchester City players naturally surrounded the referee for a long time and protested, but to no avail. The referee felt that sending out a man from Manchester City and two from Manchester United did not look good on the home field of Manchester United, so some sort of balance was needed. The tackle by Barnet was then naturally something he could not overlook.
Just like this, Manchester United won the Manchester derby at home with this controversial penalty, beating Manchester City and cementing their first place in the league.
By the time the news finally reached Twain’s ears, he and his team were already in the changing room. This news allowed the whole team to break into a large celebration. Everyone knew they successfully kicked out Manchester City and, occupying the sixth place in the league, they just needed to secure this position in the last two games, which would allow them to participate in the European matches in the next season.
Not only were the excited players cheering, they wanted to continue celebrating, but their plans were quickly stopped by Twain’s gestures.
“There are still two rounds left in the league, we have one game away from home and one home game against Manchester United. If you think you can start celebrating now, you might cry at the end of the last match.”
Twain said that coldly.
Suddenly, the jubilant atmosphere in the dressing room came to an instant stop.
“Remember, the season is not over yet, and it’s too early to celebrate. These last two games are the key. It is the time of the last sprint. Pals, I hope that you don’t let the team down right before the finishing line. If you want to celebrate, wait until the end of the game against Manchester United.”
Having said that, he was the first to turn and walk out of the changing room.
The players in the dressing room were silent for a moment before they got out of the room one by one, took the bus and left.
Twain’s words were like throwing cold water onto them, but Twain was not afraid that this would affect their morale. If the team that he trained for more than half the season was so fragile that they could not accept criticism, there would be no point in talking about going back to Europe.
Nottingham Forest would have to return to the European matches next season, whether it was for the Champions’ League or the European league. They just needed to appear on the name list of the European matches. This was the last gift Twain wanted to give Dunn.
※※※
Nottingham Forest and Tony Twain both got the result that they wanted, but someone was still furious.
“The referee’s performance in this game was very poor! My team was wronged, no one should be punished, only that guy wearing black should be punished!”
Mourinho angrily criticized the referee at the press conference. The “man in black” whom he mentioned was the head referee.
“We will raise a complaint regarding the refereeing on this game.”
A reporter stood up and asked a question that instantly turned Mourinho from fire into ice.
“Are you worried that these two red cards will affect Manchester United’s last-round match against Nottingham Forest?”
Mourinho, who had just angrily abused the referee, did not immediately answer the reporter’s question in the same tone. He just stared at the reporter for a while, then answered in a calm voice, “I’m not worried.”
That reporter wanted to ask another question, but Mourinho already pointed at another person, and the subject then returned to the conflict in the match that everyone was most concerned about.
The reporter sat down a little reluctantly. He wanted to talk more about the upcoming battle between Nottingham Forest and Manchester United.
Although there were still two weeks to go before the game, the reporter thought that the match in-between could be skipped entirely. The final face-off between Tony Twain and Mourinho, the sequel that was finally happening after many years, was the type of exciting story that was more entertaining than whatever conflict that happened during the match.
How could anyone fail to see that?
