Chapter 147: Community Shield

For Sir Alex Ferguson, mentioning things about Drinkwater in the media is really just a passing. What really matters to him is United's plans for the new season.

For Alex Ferguson, who has led this team for 23 years, last season they once again completed the great feat of three consecutive Premier League titles, which is the second dynasty period of Manchester United, and all the opponents of the Premier League seem to have returned to the era dominated by the red empire, whether it is Abu's Chelsea, or Arsene Wenger's Arsenal, or Benitez's Liverpool, they are all overwhelmed by Manchester United, and they can only watch Manchester United complete the great cause of three consecutive championships!

However, this season has been quite a challenge for Manchester United, with the loss of Carlos Tevez in the summer and the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo the most of the Red Devils. Abandoning Tevez, Manchester United pinned their hopes on veteran Michael Owen, but now Owen is no longer as brave as he once was, and injuries often loom over him. There is always the question of whether Irving will be able to maintain a high level of consistent play. Even if he can play consistently, can Antonio Valencia fill the void of Cristiano Ronaldo? Coupled with the ageing of Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes, Manchester United's strength is bound to decline.

Therefore, the media generally believe that this season is quite a challenge for Manchester United.

However, Ferguson doesn't think so, and he feels that his team's squad is still quite strong in the Premier League.

Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov's attacking partnership is enough to threaten the defence of all teams in the Premier League, and they have the quality. Even after losing Cristiano Ronaldo, Ferguson believes that Valencia from Wigan is enough to replace Cristiano Ronaldo, and in order to restore the confidence of players and fans, he even carried the number seven shirt to Valencia.

Gao Bo is naturally the later development of Valencia, who is a good winger, but wants to reach the height of Cristiano Ronaldo...... To be honest, I was thinking a little too much, and the pressure of the No. 7 jersey made Valencia a little difficult to support, so then Valencia took the initiative not to want this jersey by himself... And it turns out that Valencia's performance after changing the shirt number has indeed returned to normal.

But Ferguson doesn't know this now, he still has high hopes for Valencia. And Ferguson didn't want to lose the Community Shield.

Now the English media is generally watching Manchester United's excitement, Luton has beaten Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool one after another, this is a member of the Premier League big4, and now Manchester United has not played against Luton in the top four of the Premier League, so the media is still quite looking forward to this.

“..... If Luton Town can complete the feat of beating Manchester United in the Community Shield, Coach Goba may become the only manager to lead a former team in the lower leagues to back-to-back Premier League semi-finals across a single season..."

Even Sky Sports began to tease in the newspapers.

This is also related to the nature of the Community Shield, formerly known as the Charity Shield, which is an annual tournament hosted by the English Football Association between the English Premier League winners and the English FA Cup winners. If a team wins the double (Premier League and FA Cup), the team will be runners-up in the Premier League. The tournament is played annually at Wembley Stadium as the opening match before the start of the season. This kind of cup competition with a warm-up nature, the media did not pay special attention to the victory and defeat, as the opening game at the beginning of the season, it is more like a festival, because after this game, the Premier League games began one after another.

However, this year's Community Shield is a bit special, as it is hard for the FA to imagine that a team from the English First Division would have to play in this Community Shield match – which is usually a confrontation between Premier League teams. So in terms of fixtures, Luton Town had to postpone their first round of league fixtures because the first round of matches in the First Division had collided with the Community Shield.

Luton has nothing to say about this, and if you want to say how much Gao Bo thinks about the Community Shield, in fact, he doesn't.

For Gao Bo, he regarded this game as a high-quality warm-up game, against a team like Manchester United, what kind of performance the team can show after an off-season, how the new players are integrated, especially this game will definitely encounter some difficulties, Gao Bo wants to see how resilient this team is.

However, before that, Gao Bo wanted to solve the problem of Alex Sandro's labor certification first, and Gao Bo had already decided to use the special genius clause!

At this time, the special genius clause was actually very lenient, and before England's disastrous performance at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the labor certification was not very tight.

So generally, as long as the team uses this clause, the FA will generally pass it. Gao Bo, who didn't know much about labor certification, didn't know about it at first, but John reminded him.

"We need to find someone of sufficient weight to go to the hearing?" Gao Bo is actually not too relieved.

"No, you don't! You're good to go! John was certain.

"I ?!!"

"That's right, you think, who dug Vardy? And Charlie, Kanter, Adam! "That shows you are a very discerning manager!" As long as you have your letter of recommendation, the FA will approve it! ”

Gao Bo thought about it, and it seemed that this was the case.

Proving who is a genius is actually a very subjective thing, and this requires a weighty person.

Gao Bo didn't expect that he could be regarded as having some weight in the football world...

Gao Bo got a letter of introduction and handed it over to the team's legal counsel, Morris, to deal with the matter.

However, before the Community Shield began, Alex Sandro's labor certification had not yet been issued. The team has thought of everything, but what I didn't expect is.... FA work efficiency!

The team sent a letter to the FA in mid-July to apply for a labor certification for Alex Sandro.

The FA did not reply until the end of July, which of course rejected the application, and then Luton's appeal, which used a "special genius clause" in the appeal argument.

However, the FA has not responded to this complaint until now.

This made Gao Bo extremely dissatisfied with the FA's work efficiency.

It's been too long...

.....

Until August 8, Alex Sandro's labor certification application had not come down, so he was destined to miss the FA Cup.

So Sandro had to be a spectator in the stands.

Speaking of which, the Luton players are still very familiar with Wembley, having played at Wembley twice last season and arriving at Wembley again at the start of this season.

Most players are not new to this, but new players such as Antoine Griezmann are very interested in England's national stadiums.

The weather was not bad on the day of the game, and as the opening game of the new season, Wembley attracted a lot of attention from fans.

Even Luton fans didn't feel much new to Wembley. They were here twice last season, but that doesn't mean they've lost their passion.

At Wembley, there are still plenty of fans in Luton.

In the dressing room at Wembley, Gao Bo was making the final mobilization of the team.

"This is the first game of the new season, what can we achieve after more than a month of training, this game will be a general test!" Gao Bo said.

'Again, the game against Manchester United is a new game, Manchester United is an opponent we have never faced before, even if we played Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool last season, it doesn't give us any experience! The only thing we can do is to defend first and then look for opportunities to counter-attack!! ”

After Gao Bo finished speaking, the players walked out of the locker room.

The Community Shield is about to begin, and this brand new season is about to begin.