The legendary Red Devils coach: The road to success

Chapter 113 A Delicate Situation

Even the most imaginative screenwriters could not have written the script for the English League One title race this season, and even the craziest Arsenal fans could not have imagined the final situation of the league. If we focus on the entire season's title race, it will be even more of a race, full of suspense, and make the final championship battle extremely exciting.

--Inscription

Red Devils fans are awkwardly waiting for the end of the season, which is heading towards its climax.

All media focused their attention on Arsenal and Liverpool, who will compete for the league championship.

The theme of this season is the battle between the two teams. Not only in this last league game, but also in the whole league, there were leading and overtaking scenes, and the games against each other were also very exciting. After a long preparation throughout the season, the situation changed due to the cross-leading, and the suspense was generated again due to special reasons, and it was constantly strengthened. The possibility of winning the championship remained until the last moment...

All of this makes the suspense even more intense and makes people unable to stop.

This is the most intense championship season in the history of the English top league, and also the most suspenseful season.

Liverpool had a great momentum at the beginning of the season, and they did lead the way from the start. However, Arsenal and other big teams were not convinced and started to catch up in November, no longer letting Liverpool take the lead.

Arsenal has been in excellent form this season. They started to accelerate after entering December, not only taking the top spot in the standings, but also leaving giants like Liverpool far behind.

Liverpool caught up quickly after a short setback, and in January they swept a wave of victories to overtake Arsenal. But the team suffered a serious blow after the Hillsborough disaster. Although the coach and players were not killed or injured, the tragedy left them mentally and emotionally traumatized.

In the last 10 games of the season, Arsenal and Liverpool became the two teams most likely to win the championship. There were many surprises on both sides in these 10 games, which led to a stalemate in points and ultimately kept the suspense of winning the championship until the last moment.

The intensity of the title race this season may only be comparable to the season when the Red Devils and Leeds United had the same points. But from the perspective of attracting attention, the two giants taking turns to lead, this repeated pursuit and overtaking drama is much more exciting than one club leading and the other always chasing.

In the long English league, everything has happened. There have been many cases where two teams have the same points at the end of the league, and the winner has to be determined by goal difference or number of goals. There have also been records of two teams competing for supremacy, three teams competing for supremacy, and four teams competing for supremacy. There have also been many cases where a team has taken the lead at the beginning, even winning 94.7% of the "league championships", but was eventually snatched away by the opponent at the last minute.

This season of English Football League One is called an epic season - Arsenal and Liverpool fight until the last game, and it is a direct match. The championship will be decided by the score rather than just the win or loss.

This is the most special part.

Let's look at Liverpool first. Liverpool continued to introduce strong reinforcements before the start of the season, continuously improving the team's strength, showing the momentum of being the dominant force in English football. Dalglish was full of confidence in defending the title. When Ferguson felt helpless because he couldn't dig Gascoigne, Dalglish bought back the legendary superstar Ian Rush at a price of 280 million pounds, breaking the record of England's historical transfer fee, and formed a luxurious attack line of Ian Rush, Barnes and Aldridge. Not only that, they also have a strong midfield composed of Alan Hansen, McMahon and Beardsley. Counting the already very stable defense line and many strong substitutes, their strength is second to none in the whole of England.

A super team with so many superstars naturally won the media's attention. Many bookmakers also believed that Liverpool was the biggest favorite to win the championship and offered the lowest odds.

Let's talk about Arsenal. Compared with Liverpool, which is highly praised by the media, Arsenal is not particularly outstanding. In the previous season, it only won the sixth place, but the coach Graham is still ambitious. He won the double championship in Arsenal when he was a player, so Arsenal will naturally aim for the league championship under his leadership.

After Graham took over in the summer of 1988, he immediately made drastic changes to the team according to his own ideas. He simply sent away Anderson, Kenny Sansom, Steve Williams, Graham Rex and Charlie Nicholas, and decisively introduced center forward Alan Smith, winger Brian Marwood, midfielder Kevin Richardson and defenders Lee Dixon, Steve Bould and Nigel Winterburn, and promoted new center back Tony Adams. In this way, Graham rebuilt the skeleton of a team.

Graham attached great importance to the team's tough style. Adams, whom he trusted, was already a central defender of the England national team and a leader of the defense line. He was brave and strong with outstanding ability. Dixon, Smith, Winter and others in the Arsenal were also tough players. Graham also promoted local new stars such as David Rocaster, Michael Thomas and Paul Merson in the team's youth training, and continued to reuse David O'Leary, John Luzik and Paul Davis. Graham constantly increased the intensity of confrontation during training, emphasizing physical strength, strength and speed. After hard work, Arsenal's appearance has changed dramatically.

Arsenal's new captain Adams said before the start of the season: "We are ready and our goal is to compete for the highest championship honor. We are not afraid of any team and we are confident that we can defeat all opponents. We are very united and we will be full of confidence in winning against any opponent. We will launch an impact on the championship, and I believe the team can do it."

Adams was only 22 years old at the time, and was considered a rising star in English football. He had already been selected for the England football team for his outstanding performance. Although he was easily fooled by Van Basten in the European Cup, breaking through his defense was as cool as strolling, but everyone could see that he was making rapid progress. Although the England team performed poorly in the European Cup, everyone became the object of ridicule by the media, and Adams was also ridiculed and mocked by all parties. The Daily Mirror even vilified him as a stupid donkey and drew donkey ears on him in the cartoon. However, in the eyes of professionals in English football, Adams is an excellent central defender.

Adams's title bid triggered a new round of ridicule. He was so angry that he made a bet with the host of the ITV football program that Arsenal would win the league title. "If Arsenal can't win the league title, I will cut my hair and wear a Tottenham jersey to appear on the show!"

Adams set a lofty goal and trained hard to prepare for the new season after returning to London. He sweated profusely and trained hard day and night, and his hard work was far beyond that of ordinary people. Head coach Graham also returned to the club in advance to start pre-season training. Graham constantly instilled his football ideas into the players, constantly motivated the players to compete for the championship, and encouraged the players to kill the defending champions.

At the beginning of the season, defending champion Liverpool got off to a good start with its dominance and won a series of consecutive victories.

Arsenal then gained momentum and also won a streak of games, with more games, a bigger advantage in scenes and scores, and surpassed Liverpool in points. Arsenal continued to lead, while Liverpool's form fluctuated. On Boxing Day, Arsenal won a big victory and topped the standings, while Liverpool was only ranked sixth.

By the time the Gunners beat Everton at Goodison Park on January 1, their lead over Liverpool had extended to 14 points.

Arsenal's momentum was so strong that Graham's team became the biggest favorite to win the championship.

Just as the gambling organizations began to change their statements, another accident occurred.

It was in late January that the Gunners, who had been running all the way, began to show signs of fatigue, while Liverpool began to scramble for points. Liverpool got rid of the slump in the previous period and set off a round of surging under the coordination of Dalglish. After being beaten 1-3 by the Red Devils in the New Year's Day game, the team began to fight back frantically. Liverpool played an amazing unbeaten record, winning consecutively against Nottingham Forest, Wimbledon, Queens Park Rangers and other teams, and quickly surpassed several opponents in front of them in points, striving to catch up with the top of the list.

Arsenal seemed to be stumbling under Liverpool's pursuit. They scored an own goal against Manchester United and lost the game, and then they never won the game stably. In the third to last round of the league, the Gunners suffered a big upset and lost to the weak team Derby County. To make matters worse, they were tied by Wimbledon in the second to last round. After two rounds of the league, they only got one point with one draw and one loss. After Liverpool was tied by Everton, they immediately defeated West Ham United with a big score of 1-5, surpassing Arsenal in one fell swoop.

There is only one round left in the league, and Arsenal is 3 points behind Liverpool in the standings. And the last round of the game is scheduled to be Arsenal vs. Liverpool.

The fierce competition between the two giants is unprecedented in the history of English football. There are many classic championship battles in history, and there are many suspenseful games until the last game. The Red Devils swept Arsenal 1952-6 at Old Trafford in the last round of 1 to win the league championship, and Manchester City snatched the championship from the Red Devils after scoring a last-minute goal in the final game of the Premier League... But these dramas cannot compare with the Arsenal vs. Liverpool game. In the former, Busby's young team opened the slaughter at the beginning of the game, and the ownership of the championship was no longer suspenseful; in the latter, the two teams played against different opponents, and the endings were also different, which was far less exciting than the last game of this season to see the result.

Arsenal was sluggish, Liverpool was killing all around, and the situation before the game seemed to be Liverpool's advantage. Liverpool also defeated Everton in the FA Cup final, winning the FA Cup first, and was the stronger side in morale. Not only that, Liverpool also had an advantage, that is, playing at home - Anfield's reputation is not just based on bragging. Data shows that Arsenal played very badly at Anfield. They had no wins in the last 13 matches against Liverpool at Anfield, with a record of 3 draws and 10 losses. In 13 games, Liverpool scored 26 goals, averaging 2 goals per game, while Arsenal only scored a pitiful 7 goals in total.

A statistic that makes Arsenal fans even more desperate is that Liverpool has not been beaten by more than two goals at Anfield in the past three years, and no team can do it.

If Arsenal want to win the championship, they must beat Liverpool and win by two goals or more. How difficult is it to win by two goals at Anfield?

"It's too difficult!" Even Arsenal players thought it was an impossible task.

Three days before this match, on May 5, Liverpool beat West Ham United 23-5 at home. Liverpool played fiercely in this match and made a great reputation with their overwhelming goals. Outside the game, Arsenal striker Alan Smith was having dinner with his friends. Watching Liverpool score goals non-stop, one, two, three, four... Arsenal striker himself lost confidence, "They are so strong, who can beat them now?"

The media's reaction was basically one-sided and not optimistic about Arsenal. The Hillsborough disaster allowed Liverpool to occupy the moral high ground and gain more support. Many people hoped that Liverpool could win the league championship to comfort the dead.