The legendary Red Devils coach: The road to success

Chapter 331 The Beginning of Money-Driven Football

"The famous quote from the team owner Jack Walker at the time spread around the world: This championship made people find Blackburn on the map of Britain."

--Inscription

This season's Premier League started in August 1994 and ended in May 8. A total of 1995 matches were played, and the participating teams scored a total of 5 goals, with an average of 462 goals per game. This exciting data on the number of goals clearly demonstrates the offensive-oriented nature of the Premier League, and also attracts more fans to pay attention to this league full of offensive passion.

In the third year of the Premier League, a new champion team was born, Blackburn Rovers. Their success seems more like a myth, because their last top league title was in 1914. This interval is 80 years, how difficult it is!

Blackburn's victory is of great significance to the Premier League. This new champion has brought suspense back to the Premier League, and suspense has given fans more expectations and made the Premier League more exciting. This season, the Premier League has also seen various stories and even scandals, which have attracted more attention from fans and made the league even more popular.

Blackburn's road to success is inseparable from the then owner Jack Walker's unconditional investment. He spared no expense to help the team reach the top. It was from this season that money-driven football began to attract the media's attention, and wealth showed super power in the field of football.

With the amazing amount of money supporting them, the success of Blackburn Rovers is almost unquestionable. Of course, their success is inseparable from the contributions of Shearer and other superstars, and also inseparable from the unity and cooperation of the entire team. They have clear goals, concentrate their minds, and give up all other ideas except the league championship early. Perhaps their coach Dalglish is the most important. The former Liverpool superstar and coach has the experience of winning the English top league, the experience of defeating Ferguson, rich team building experience, and excellent tactics, which also enables the entire team to withstand the pressure under his leadership and laugh to the end.

The winners of each championship were beyond the fans' expectations. In addition to Blackburn's league title, Everton defeated the Red Devils to win the FA Cup, while Liverpool took the League Cup. The ambitious Red Devils were ultimately disappointed in both championships and became the object of ridicule by some of their sworn enemies' fans.

Competition this season is extremely fierce, and many inconspicuous teams have suddenly exploded. In addition to Blackburn, Nottingham Forest has also suddenly become powerful. This old giant has made a big splash after returning to the Premier League, and finally ranked third, completely overwhelming the traditional giant Liverpool. Newcastle United, which had a stunning performance last season, started high and ended low, paying the price for immaturity. The Magpies have not only lost the colorful coat of the favorite to win the championship, but their performance has also declined.

The Premier League has undergone a major reform this season. First, the number of teams was reduced for the first and only time, from 22 to 20, and the number of matches was reduced from 42 to 38. In order to match this arrangement, the number of relegation places this season increased from 3 to 4, which is also the only time in the history of the Premier League. Crystal Palace and Leicester, which had just been promoted, were relegated back to the first division, and the other two relegation places eventually fell to the unlucky Norwich and Ipswich.

This league advocates offense, and all teams are very committed to the offensive end, and the offense is full of sparks. Blackburn is the team with the strongest offensive power in the league, scoring a total of 80 goals, averaging 1.90 goals per game; Crystal Palace is the team with the weakest offensive power in the league, scoring only 34 goals, averaging 0.80 goals per game; the Red Devils are slightly inferior in the offensive end, but they are the team with the strongest defensive ability in the league, conceding only 28 goals, averaging 0.66 goals per game, and only conceding 21 goals in 3 home games in the league, a total of 4 goals, setting a record for the fewest goals conceded at home in the Premier League. Ipswich's defense is weak, conceding a total of 93 goals in the entire league, averaging 2.21 goals per game. Ipswich also set a record for the most goals conceded in a single game in the league this season, and they were bloodbathed 9-0 by the Red Devils at home away.

In the scorer list, Alan Shearer of Blackburn Rovers scored 34 league goals, becoming the undisputed top scorer. Not only did he tie the number of goals scored by Cole last season, he also helped the team win the Premier League title. Another striker of Blackburn Rovers, Sutton, proved that his five million pounds was worth it, scoring 15 league goals. The "SS" combination of Shearer and Sutton is the most powerful combination in the Premier League.

The Red Devils' offensive data this season is a bit disappointing, with only 77 goals scored in total, and several forwards are in a goal drought. Kanchelskis has become the player with the most goals in the team, but he has only scored 14 goals. Cantona, who is second, and Andy Cole, who is third, both scored 12 goals; another main striker Mark Hughes's form has declined seriously, and he has only scored 8 goals this season. Cole has scored 18 goals in just 12 games for the Red Devils. Counting the 9 goals he scored in Newcastle, his league goal number has reached 21 goals, which is already a very good data for a striker who has missed many games due to injuries and transferred midway.

Tottenham's Les Ferdinand and Forest's Stan Collymore are also at the top of the scorer list. Liverpool's Fowler became famous at a young age and has performed well this season, becoming a favorite at Anfield.

The shooters were all outstanding, but the biggest limelight of the season was taken by a German, a World Cup champion and the main striker of the German national team, Jurgen Klinsmann.

Klinsmann's joining Tottenham before the season also attracted widespread attention. Klinsmann's joining was compared with the arrival of Argentine star Ardiles in England. This was the first time that the Premier League attracted the main players of the world champion team. Klinsmann is old and his bomber doesn't have much fuel, but he is still a C-position superstar, even the Premier League's top player. Klinsmann quickly adapted to the Premier League environment and became the team's offensive core. Gascoigne, an imaginative attacking player, began to frequently send high balls into the opponent's penalty area because of Klinsmann. Although Klinsmann is no longer in his heyday, his power as an "air bomber" is still hard for opponents to defend. In Klinsmann's first game in the Premier League, he helped Tottenham beat Sheffield Wednesday 4-3 away. Klinsmann's full-body diving celebration after scoring a goal - diving and sliding on the grass - became a popular scene in the Premier League, followed by the entire Tottenham team, forming a spectacle of people diving. Klinsmann played 41 games for Tottenham throughout the season and scored 28 goals, including 20 Premier League goals. It can be said that the "Golden Bomber" lived up to his name and became the first foreign best player in Premier League history.

At the time, Tottenham boasted an offensive quintet of Klinsmann, Shelingham, Anderton, Barmby and Dumitrescu, with Gascoigne, the darling of England, as the core of the organization. Overall, the team was very strong. Tottenham was highly regarded as a favorite to win the championship, but they had weaknesses such as poor defense and unstable form, and were pulled down not long after the start of the season. In the end, the team ranked only seventh in the league, which disappointed the fans and the club owner.

The Tottenham manager was swiftly sacked at the end of the season and replaced by Gerry Francis.

In addition to Klinsmann's arrival in the Premier League like a whirlwind, his joining has greatly strengthened the internationalization process of the Premier League and has also made many top European players begin to consider entering England.

Starting this season, the Premier League has implemented a system of fixed jersey numbers for players, requiring fixed numbers and player names to be printed on jerseys.

This great business idea was first proposed by Arsenal. Between 1926 and 1934, Arsenal coach Herbert Chapman decided to write numbers on the back of players' jerseys so that players could easily identify them. Another Gunner, David Dein, was the first to request that standardized letters be printed on jerseys. He later became the vice chairman of Arsenal. This practice was condemned in the early 90s. Newspapers once ridiculed that players running in jerseys with names on them "looked like wanted criminals being chased by the police". The players were reluctant to wear such jerseys at the time, but they soon tasted the sweetness because some fans believed that they needed to have an exclusive connection with their idols, and jerseys suddenly became popular. After players' jerseys have exclusive numbers, they can indeed be distinguished from other players by numbers. For the club, this is a fantastic idea. This publicity strategy further expands the personal fan base of the star, and at the same time, it also effectively promotes jersey sales, which is of great benefit to the club's business operations.

This system quickly spread to other leagues and became the world football standard, widely adopted by all clubs and national teams.

This is a landmark decision.

Only Lee Sharp of the Red Devils was resistant, because the spelling of his name "sharp" was exactly the same as the English spelling of the Red Devils' jersey sponsor, Japan's Sharp Corporation, which later led to the joke that a famous Chinese commentator mistook this "sharp" for that "sharp".

Arsenal led the way in jersey sales, but a major earthquake occurred within the club. At the beginning of the season, Arsenal was considered one of the strong contenders for the championship, and coach Graham also brazenly declared that he would achieve greater success, but he was quickly overwhelmed by the surging scandals and the entire team was unable to recover.

After in-depth investigations, reporters published special articles after the season started, exposing Graham's disgraceful behavior during pre-season transfers and accusing him of accepting bribes. Reporters alleged that he accepted bribes from Swedish agent Haug twice, totaling 26 pounds, to bring in "parallel import" players from the other party at unreasonable prices. A Danish reporter had always suspected that Haug had something fishy in the process of arranging player transfers. He carefully checked the accounts of the clubs related to the transferred players and found loopholes, so he exposed the scandal of Graham's bribery.

The bribery scandal shocked the Arsenal and the entire league. After investigation, Arsenal ruled that Graham had engaged in improper conduct. Graham not only had to pay the stolen money plus interest to the club, but was also fined 5 pounds.

The matter did not end there. After the FA announced its intervention, the Arsenal board announced the dismissal of Graham in February 1995. The FA then decided to suspend Graham's coaching qualifications for one year and handed over the relevant evidence to the English judicial department.

But the scandal was not finally confirmed by the British judicial authorities and Graham was not found guilty.

Liverpool, another Premier League giant, is a bit hard to describe. They are ranked fourth this season. Liverpool has not completed a complete transition this season. Although Fowler, McManaman and Redknapp have been called the "Red Army Stars" and Collymore was forced to join in the middle, these young players alone are obviously not capable of supporting a super giant like Liverpool.

When Blackburn Rovers emerged, the Premier League was still dominated by Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool. As for the so-called giants such as Chelsea and Manchester City, they were ranked outside the top 10 and had no competitiveness at all.

This season's Premier League games have seen various hot spots, including record-breaking transfer fees, superstar signings, scandals involving famous coaches, star kicks at fans, and Ben's thrilling win... This has made the league even more exciting. While the TV broadcasts have become more beautiful, the media's ability to create topics has also reached a new level. The power of business has rapidly pushed the Premier League to a higher level.