The legendary Red Devils coach: The road to success

Chapter 84 Revenge on the Mad Gang

"If someone insults me, I will insult him."

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The last round of the league was no longer relevant to the overall situation. The standings had been settled, Liverpool had already won the championship early, and the Red Devils had already stabilized in second place, so the win or loss of this game was not important to the Red Devils.

However, the Red Devils' opponent in this game is very special, especially for Ferguson. Therefore, the Red Devils' game against Wimbledon has extraordinary significance.

As the media said, "Wimbledon has now become Ferguson's nightmare and the Red Devils' victim."

The media is not optimistic about Ferguson's team, mainly because of the poor performance in the past. Considering that Ferguson has been defeated several times against Wimbledon since he took over, and has not gained an advantage in both the field and the results, especially the previous winning streak of the Red Devils was interrupted by the Mad Gang, so many media think that the Red Devils are likely to lose in this game.

Manchester Evening News said, "The Red Devils have won so many games in a row, and it is not easy to continue the winning streak. This is the last game of the season, and there is a certain restraint in the styles of the two teams. The Red Devils will likely encounter a tough battle and the game will become very difficult."

The harder it is, the more we move forward. Ferguson is determined to break the embarrassing record against Wimbledon and to defeat the arrogance of the Mad Gang. He said in a special edition before the game: "We never believe in any natural enemy, let alone any victim. Wimbledon's style of play is barbaric and fierce, but it is only at a very low level. I guarantee that we have all these things and are better. We will definitely destroy them at home and completely reverse our unfavorable situation of being passively beaten."

Before the game, Ferguson made a special pre-war mobilization in the locker room. Ferguson said, "We are stronger than them and can play better than them. I have only one requirement for this game, which is to fight hard. No need to consider anything, just beat them!"

Ferguson lined up a 442 formation to go head-to-head with the opponent. Turner, who has been in good form recently, continued to be the goalkeeper, the four defenders were Duxbury, Blackmore, Bruce and McGrath, the midfield was Moses, Robson, Strachan, Gibson, and the forwards were McClair and Davenport.

Before the game, the Red Devils players were specially organized by Ferguson to collectively watch videos of the bullying by Wimbledon in the previous games, including the eye-catching clips of Whiteside and Mullen being pinched on the balls by opponent Vinnie Jones, as well as a bunch of fouls of players being tackled, kicked, and stepped on by opponents, and many intentional collisions while running... These videos helped Ferguson to mobilize before the game. At the beginning of the game, the Red Devils players showed a very tough attitude, especially several midfielders who directly chased the opponent to seek confrontation, and they were also very fierce in stealing and competing for headers. Unlike the media's imagination, the Red Devils played a completely different style, deploying a formation in the midfield, starting an active sniping, fiercely blocking and intercepting in the midfield, and launching an attack immediately after stealing the ball.

Robson was in the midfield, and he, McGrath and McClair had already discussed it, and they started by "firing" at Vinnie Jones. As he started with a fierce tackle, McClair gave Jones an unreasonable elbow, and McGrath took the initiative to approach Jones and kneed him in close...

Jones was tough and domineering by nature, but no matter how strong he was, he could not withstand the special care of the three tough guys from Manchester United. He quickly signaled to Robson that he was willing to abide by the rules and play the game honestly.

The tactics arranged by Ferguson focused on offense, but also focused on studying the opponent's counterattack. He always paid attention to blocking the opponent's counterattack, slowing down their speed, and striving to block the opponent in the midfield. Manchester United players did not pass and transfer too much when holding the ball to attack, and tried to play simply and quickly. The players left in the midfield and backcourt did not blindly press to the frontcourt, and did not give the opponent space and opportunities for high-speed sprint counterattacks. Considering the defects of Bruce and McGrath, the two central defenders, who turned around and chased back slowly, Ferguson specifically instructed the coordination of the entire defense line and also specially arranged for the midfield to make up for the defense. Under Ferguson's targeted clamping tactics, the Red Devils quickly suppressed the opponent in an all-round way, and hit the opponent's penalty area many times, and began to create shooting opportunities.

This game was not very important for Wimbledon. On the one hand, they thought Manchester United was easy to bully and played casually at the beginning; on the other hand, they would play an FA Cup final later, which was the decisive battle that they really valued.

At that time, the Wimbledon team was coached by Bobby Gould. The team had "bad guys" like Fashanu, Jones, Sanchez and Downes. Their tactical play was characterized by toughness. They were extremely aggressive, direct and intimidating on the court. They followed pragmatism on the court and would do anything to win, even resorting to extremely bad foul tactics.

Gould said: "I can honestly say that everything I did at Wimbledon was to kill the opponent. In the field of football, what is the more important element of the club besides the terrifying home atmosphere, rough game methods and simple and clear tactics? That is the spiritual power of the entire club, which has always inspired the entire team. We are full of confidence in any team, whether it is Liverpool or Manchester United."

Back to this game, after Wimbledon encountered fierce pressure from Manchester United, their ferocity could not be suppressed.

After 30 minutes, they started to become more and more violent. Although Jones had become more honest, Sanchez and Downes continued to use flying tackles, even very bad ones with shiny studs. Ferguson was well prepared for this. The Red Devils players were not afraid of rough fouls. Robson and McGrath doubled Sanchez and used foul tactics to eliminate his arrogance. McClair jumped up in time when the opponent's defender deliberately flew a tackle, and "just happened" to fall on the defender, making him "lose more than he gains".

While the Red Devils players were fighting head-on with their opponents, they did not delay their own attack. In the 17th minute of the first half, Manchester United created a killing opportunity. Blackmore dribbled the ball to the opponent's penalty area on the left and made a cross. Unfortunately, Davenport headed the ball away without anyone defending. In the 23rd minute, Manchester United launched another offensive. Robson advanced to the top of the penalty area from the midfield and shot. Unfortunately, this powerful long-range shot was too straight and was firmly saved by the opponent's goalkeeper. In the 31st minute, Manchester United attacked quickly. Strachan dribbled the ball on the left side of the frontcourt, passed the opponent's midfield, went down the bottom, cut into the penalty area and made a cross. McClair appeared in the penalty area in time to grab the front point and easily shot in front of the goal!

Manchester United leads 1-0.

In the subsequent games, the Red Devils continued to take the initiative, constantly using high-speed offense and defense to consume the opponent's physical strength and disrupt the opponent's rhythm. Wimbledon lost the initiative in the midfield and it was difficult to play the familiar long pass, high ball competition and then the second point to continue attacking. Not only that, Manchester United paid great attention to the opponent's two flanks, and organized multiple defenses many times to prevent the opponent's wingers from easily kicking the ball, and also made the two wingers' crosses lose their power.

Wimbledon did not have many other options after falling behind. After all, they lacked ball control and breakthrough experts. It was difficult for them to find their own rhythm in front of the Red Devils' defense. They made many passing errors in the midfield. The basic technology and tactical coordination of the whole team was still insufficient, and they did not pose much threat to the Red Devils.

Manchester United made a mistake in the midfield in the 60th minute. Wimbledon intercepted the ball and made a long pass, scoring a goal. However, the Red Devils played more freely and energetically, and their tempo kept accelerating, but they still kept firm control of the situation.

In the 71st minute of the second half, the Red Devils launched another attack after failing to take the lead after many attempts at shooting. Robson passed the ball from the midfield, Davenport passed it to his teammates, Strachan assisted, and McClair scored another goal, helping the Red Devils to finally secure the victory.

The Red Devils beat Wimbledon 2-1, ending the record of the Crazy Gang running wild against the Red Devils.

Gould was not convinced after the loss. In an interview after the game, he said: "The Red Devils played too brutally. We came here to play the game, not to enjoy special treatment. The Red Devils committed too many fouls and our players were treated unfairly."

Ferguson could not help laughing. "To be fair, Wimbledon was the team that was taken care of today. If the referee enforced the law according to Gould's requirements and the standards were truly strict and fair, Wimbledon would not have enough people to finish the game today. Their players are almost used to flying tackles and flashing their studs, and they are also very skilled at elbowing people during close competition. These actions should all be direct red cards. As for those despicable little actions, I don't want to say more, all the teams that have played against them know it."

Wimbledon's loss did not affect their league relegation, as they had already accomplished this miraculous task. Not only that, their reaching the FA Cup final was also surprising. In the FA Cup final, they finally defeated the league's dominant Liverpool and won the FA Cup, a rare honor, completing a great season.

Jones, who played a major role in Wimbledon's victory, later recalled: "We started preparing for the FA Cup final before playing against Manchester United. The whole team was thinking about how to win the FA Cup. Of course we knew that Manchester United would play a game with us, but many people were worried about injuries, including me, and we were thinking about Liverpool."

No matter what the opponent's reasons were, it was a victory for the Red Devils. After this tough battle, Ferguson's team finally got rid of the bad habit of being bullied by Wimbledon. The Red Devils used a hard-to-hard victory to complete the revenge.

After the game, all the media focused on the Red Devils striker McClair. McClair, who scored two goals in this game, performed so well that he was once again named the best player of the match and received cheers from the fans.

Including the two goals in this game, McClair has scored 31 goals for the Red Devils this season (24 in the league, 2 in the FA Cup, and 5 in the League Cup), making him the team's top scorer. His number of goals alone far exceeds the other two Red Devils forwards, Davenport and Whiteside, who have scored only 16 goals. McClair's number of goals even exceeds the sum of the second, third, and fourth place in the Red Devils team. It can be said that he is the only one who supports the Red Devils' firepower.

Even though he didn't win the league's Golden Boot, McClair was already dazzling enough. Scoring 24 goals in a season would be a core player for any team, especially for Manchester United, which had been lacking an excellent striker for a long time. McClair was so good that he was the first striker to score more than 1971 goals in a single season since George Best in the 72-25 season.

On par with Best, McClair has undoubtedly become the darling of the Theatre of Dreams.

The killer that Ferguson insisted on bringing in before the season was so dazzling and helped the team so much, which also proved that Ferguson's vision was very accurate.