Chapter 110: The Discipline Of The Team Part 2
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
He looked left and right and found that his Forest teammates who had been on the team since last season did not seem surprised by the situation, but instead they smiled and faced the direction of the locker room together with the manager. Only the few “newcomers” who arrived this summer were just as puzzled as he was.
It looked like they were all quite familiar with the new manager. His face was full of smiles as he greeted everyone, which seemed kind of nice. Maybe they would get along nicely… maybe.
Just as Rebrov was feeling uncertain about Twain, the last man in the team, Gareth Taylor, came out from inside.
Seeing him, Walker stopped the stopwatch and handed it to Twain.
Tang En took it and looked at the time shown: five minutes forty-nine seconds. As he tossed the stopwatch back, he muttered to Walker, “Women change clothes faster than he does.”
Walker shrugged. He had become accustomed to Taylor’s way of dragging his feet and no matter how many times he had said something to him, it did not work. If he tried to punish him during training, Collymore would say, “Oh my god! I used to do that frequently when I was playing. As long as he can score goals, why should you care if it takes him 10 minutes or 10 hours to change his clothes?” After that, the discouraged Walker simply did not care anymore.
With his head lowered, Taylor was still fastening the belt on his shorts as he was walking out. He obviously did not see Twain and Walker standing at the side. Seeing how he was about to walk past them without looking up, soft laughter could be heard in from the training field.
Tang En turned his head and glanced at them, and the laughter stopped at once. Walker called out to stop the last man.
“Taylor.”
When he heard someone call him, Taylor finally raised his head. When he clearly saw the two men standing in front of him, he immediately realized he might be in trouble.
The assistant manager Des Walker, and an unfamiliar man, both had the same expression on their faces—straight-faced and unsmiling.
“Uh, what’s the matter, coach?”
Walker did not speak, but the unfamiliar man next to him said, “Gareth Taylor, you were transferred from Burnley at the start of this season with a transfer fee of £550,000. You represented the Forest team for seventeen rounds of League Championship games and three cup matches and scored 10 goals and had one assist. These statistics are not too bad.”
Taylor could not understand what this man was trying to do. He could only stand there and remain silent.
“But you’re in the wrong place.” Tang En pointed to the northeast side. There was another training ground behind a row of trees and wire fence. “You should be training on the fourth field.”
“What?” Taylor thought he heard wrong.
Tang En nodded in affirmation, “Congratulations, Mr. Taylor. From now on, you’re a member of the reserve team.”
Not to mention the shock on Taylor’s face, Walker had no idea that Twain’s approach to dealing with it was this. The new manager had decided to put changing the locker room atmosphere at the top of his list when he heard about the general situation of the locker room.
“Why?” Taylor became anxious. He knew the straight-faced man in front of him was the new manager. “Why do you want me to go to the second team?”
“Because you’re much better than the third team.” Tang En gave a shrug of his shoulders. After he had said that, he turned to walk toward the training field and ignored the poor thing who was tardy.
This answer stumped Taylor for a moment. He looked at the back of Twain and looked at his teammates on the field. Before that, they had gathered to chat and joke together in twos or threes, and their expressions looked as if they were waiting to watch a good show. And now they were quickly assembling and lining up!
He suddenly realized that those good days where he could go to bed an hour later at night and wake up an hour later would never return.
Walker followed behind Twain and whispered the worry in his heart. “Tony. I know you want to reshape the team discipline, but isn’t this way too direct and brutal? Taylor does procrastinate, but he’s still the team’s number one striker. He plays a large part in us advancing to the quarter-finals of the EFL Cup.”
Tang En looked at the players who had knowingly lined up in two rows on the training field ahead, smiled, and then turned his head to Walker and said, “Des. It is necessary for them to understand now that the only irreplaceable person within this team… is me.”
Then he marched up to the group of players who had become well-behaved.
“The earliest one of you was 47 seconds late.” Tang En raised his hands and pointed to his watch on his left wrist with his right hand. “And the latest person who came out was one minute and 32 seconds. I don’t care why you were late, even if you say you were shaving your legs in the locker room. It doesn’t concern me. All I know is that you guys are late for your training by one minute and 32 seconds!” He yelled. “I don’t care how the previous manager trained you. Now I’m the manager, your boss! I want you to know the importance of discipline in the team. Anyone who violates that discipline will be punished!”
He looked at the silent players and then pointed to the sidelines.
“A lap for every 10 seconds, 13 laps in total. I’ll discount you that two seconds. All right, all of you run now! I’ll double the laps if you try to slack off!”
The players who had expected the result had no objections. All of them ran to the sidelines with their heads lowered and started to run the first lap of their 13 laps.
Rebrov looked at the man who turned and spoke to the assistant manager and followed behind his teammates to run laps without protest.
This manager is totally different from Collymore.
After about a week of observation, the team’s training situation made Tang En very satisfied. In fact, with Walker around, the team’s training schedule had been without any problem. The key was no one checked these players and told them that they must follow the rules. Collymore indulged the players, which was like he indulged in himself, and he suffered the consequences of his own actions. Tang En was not going to be as stupid as he was.
When they first met, he had already used practical actions to inform the group of undisciplined and disorganized players. Here, I am the boss. Whoever doesn’t want to do it, Taylor is the example. He must be very lonely on the reserve team and anxiously waiting for someone to accompany him.
Of course, Tang En also knew to act within limits. After using Taylor as a “sacrificial lamb”, the team performed to his satisfaction and he did not raise a big stink anymore.
During the training, he rarely expressed his opinion. Everything was like last season. He would watch on the sidelines. Walker and the rest of the coaching staff oversaw the training, and Tang En was very pleased with their work. Since he had decided to hand over the training to the coaching team and had already reviewed and passed the training program, it would seem disrespectful to the work of the coaching team if he were to interject. This type of behavior was also what Tang En found the most annoying.
He only needed to let the players know he was there. So, he stood on the sidelines and wore his sunglasses, looking cool like Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix.”
The media had polarizing views of Twain’s appointment.
The out of town media were not optimistic about Twain’s coaching prospects. Nottingham Forest’s goal this season should be to avoid a relegation, and not a promotion. But to a young team manager suddenly taking over the team, he had to face a team morale that had hit rock bottom like the Nottingham Forest Club’s share price, tackle a nervous and divided locker room, and lead a team that would bid farewell to the two main players during the winter break. The news that Michael Dawson and Andy Reid would transfer to Tottenham Hotspur had been announced during the winter break, and this had caused the fans to resent the club’s top brass and Collymore. But, as it was previously said, no one could change any of Doughty’s decisions. It might be too difficult to complete the mission to avoid relegation.
In response to this, the local media in Nottingham gave a rebuttal. Pierce Brosnan applauded the club’s board of directors’ decision to appoint the new manager in an article in the Nottingham Evening Post.
“….If the reason for being down on him was due to the terrible atmosphere in the locker room and the low team morale, then did the Forest team, that Mr. Twain took over on January 3rd this year, have a favorable atmosphere and a show of solidarity throughout the ranks? Was the morale running high and were they united in their striving? What was the result last season? From the fourteenth place, we advanced into the playoffs, and it was the team with the greatest progress in its ranking in that season. I have the same view as many of the Forest fans: if there is anyone else who can lead the team now, it must be Tony Twain!”
Tang En was very grateful to Brosnan speaking on his behalf, but he knew very well that it did not matter what each side of the media had said about whether he could lead the team or not. The only convincing proof were the results from leading the team. If they won, it meant that he led the team well. if they lost, it meant that he did not do a good job.
Next, Nottingham Forest would play in a home match against their direct rival to avoid relegation—the third lowest ranked, Crystal Palace.
This was going to be an uphill battle.
