Martin O'Neill's closed training sessions made Manchester City manager Villas-Boas nervous.

In reality, Manchester City's strength was indeed inferior to Liverpool's. Even with home-field advantage, the strength gap only narrowed from one hundred to fifty. There was still a gap of fifty!

Therefore, the outside world believed that Martin O'Neill was being overly cautious. With Liverpool's strength, they could completely defeat Manchester City.

Villas-Boas knew that the only chance to defeat Liverpool was to make them arrogant and underestimate their opponent.

This was originally very likely to happen.

The stronger Liverpool was, the more likely they were to be arrogant and underestimate the enemy. Not to mention facing Manchester City, a team they had always steadily defeated.

In addition, the temptation of winning the championship by defeating Manchester City would also bring some extra influence to Liverpool's players.

Adding these factors together, Manchester City still had a chance to defeat Liverpool at home.

The premise was that Liverpool had to despise Manchester City from the bottom of their hearts.

However, Martin O'Neill's closed training made Villas-Boas feel threatened.

The *Sun* could publish cartoons to mock Martin O'Neill, and O'Neill's lifelike expressions would make people who saw them smile knowingly.

But for Villas-Boas, he couldn't laugh at all.

If Liverpool were really as cautious as O'Neill in the cartoon, Manchester City would have absolutely no chance of making a comeback!

For this reason, Villas-Boas had to come up with some countermeasures.

Want to make Martin O'Neill arrogant and underestimate the enemy? That was impossible. Everyone knew what O'Neill's character was like.

He was the kind of person who would actually take a bite of shit to make sure he was eating shit!

So he didn't want to influence O'Neill's judgment, what he had to do was influence Liverpool's players.

No matter how great the coach was, the people who went on the field to execute his tactics were still the players.

Players were not robots, but people with their own thoughts, so their understanding of the coach's tactical ideas became the key to the execution of the tactics.

Why were some players, who were obviously of average level, always able to get many opportunities to play under the coach? Even more than those talented players.

It was simple, because their tactical understanding and execution ability were better than the talented players.

Coaches always liked obedient players, not talented but willful players.

Just like the conflict between Villas-Boas and Agüero, Villas-Boas wanted the Manchester City team to listen to him, but Agüero didn't want to avenge himself against Villas-Boas and submit. In this way, even if Agüero's ability was outstanding and his talent was good, Villas-Boas would not hesitate to get rid of him.

Therefore, no matter how careful Martin O'Neill was, as long as the Liverpool players in the actual game felt that Manchester City was not a threat and they could play casually, that would be enough.

By the time O'Neill discovered in the game that the situation was not developing as he had expected, it would be too late. Even if he could replace three people in one go, what was the point of replacing three people if the whole team was arrogant and underestimated the enemy?

Therefore, the key was with the players, not with Martin O'Neill.

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Starting four days before the game, Villas-Boas constantly appeared in front of the media, and he naturally had to talk about the upcoming game.

He didn't express in a tough tone that his team would stubbornly block Liverpool at home.

On the contrary, he said that the strength gap between Manchester City and Liverpool was too large, and Manchester City could not defeat Liverpool at home.

"I know that many people are watching us, hoping that we can delay Liverpool's title-winning time... and the media is suspecting whether we will deliberately release water and give away three points because of our hatred with Manchester United... I want to say that I am a very ethical person, and so is my team. I have never thought about releasing water. However, our strength is there for all to see. I also know that many media outlets are confidently saying that we will lose to Liverpool because our strength is far inferior to Liverpool... This is the fact. I don't intend to say anything, but this is the fact. When a team is too much stronger than us, everything is already destined..."

"...The league is a marathon, and you can't use all your strength in one place. Our current situation is not good, after all, we haven't even entered the top five in the league. If we spend too much energy in one game, we will face a situation where we can't continue... This is not what I want to see... Sometimes, it is necessary to give up some games..."

Villas-Boas was more skillful than the average person, because he didn't directly and nakedly flatter Liverpool's strength. Doing so would arouse suspicion.

Because the hatred between Manchester City and Liverpool was catching up with that of Manchester United in recent years, being too humble would make people suspicious.

So Villas-Boas successfully played the image of a coach who had ambition but was helpless in the face of reality in front of the media and the public.

He actually hoped that Manchester City could defeat Liverpool, but the huge gap in strength between the two sides made him helpless. So he had to give up the plan to block Liverpool at home, which was easy to understand. Apart from this round, there were four rounds left in the league, and four rounds were still hopeful for Manchester City. Even if they lost to Liverpool, and Newcastle United and Arsenal, who were ahead of them, won, the points difference between the three teams would still be four and five points. This was not a big gap.

Compared to fighting Liverpool to the death in a game, and then being scarred and paying a heavy price, it was obviously more reliable to easily give up this game and then concentrate all their energy to win the remaining four league games.

Liverpool would never let Manchester City spoil their championship celebration, so everyone knew what level of resistance Manchester City would encounter if they were to face them head-on in this game.

Therefore, Villas-Boas' choice was normal, and no one would think there was anything wrong with it.

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After making his statement, Villas-Boas had been paying attention to the reports in the media, wanting to see what the public thought of his statement.

Public opinion could influence people's hearts. When the power of public opinion was strong enough, black could be said to be white, let alone just making Liverpool's players have arrogant and underestimating thoughts?

Martin O'Neill could conduct closed training sessions, not allowing the media and fans to enter the training base to watch the training. But he couldn't close the eyes and ears of all Liverpool players.

Those players always had to return to their homes after finishing their daily training. At that time, whether they were surfing the Internet, watching TV, or reading newspapers, they would always be exposed to media information.

Nowadays, information was so developed. This game was also highly anticipated, so there would definitely be a lot of media coverage about this game. They could easily know their attitude.

At that time, what kind of seeds would his words plant in their hearts... It was really exciting!

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The media lived up to Villas-Boas' expectations. They spread his words out, and also analyzed his thoughts to everyone, letting them know why Villas-Boas made this helpless choice.

Those famous reporters and experts in the media had always prided themselves on knowing more than ordinary people, and had a natural sense of superiority. They never missed any opportunity to show off their intelligence in front of the general public.

Villas-Boas' words were broken down and explained to the fans and readers.

There was no reading barrier at all, and everyone knew the reason why Villas-Boas did this.

Perfect.

This was Villas-Boas' thought after seeing the media's performance.

He really loved these media outlets to death now.

This saved him so much trouble!

He didn't need to perform anymore, and there would always be flaws if he performed too much, and the same was true if he said too much. Now he didn't need to perform or say anything, the media automatically helped him complete it, and some of the reasons they found were things he hadn't even thought of himself. In this way, what was originally just a lie was gradually perfected by many clever and self-righteous media outlets.

Now, if he didn't know the truth, he was afraid that even he himself would think that Manchester City was really going to give up this game.

Just like the reasons that the media found for Villas-Boas, Villas-Boas, as the coach, had already given up once anyway, so he had a previous record, and it was normal to give up again.

Now it depended on whether those arrogant players from Liverpool would be fooled...

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"Villas-Boas surrenders?"

This was a headline in the newspaper, with a picture of Villas-Boas raising his hands and holding a white flag photoshopped on it, and then the headline was read out by Chen Hero.

After Chen Hero read it out, he couldn't help but curl his lips and smile.

It was a disdainful smile.

Villas-Boas conceded defeat so quickly?

What a coward!

If Villas-Boas could know Chen Hero's psychological activities, he might be ecstatic at this time.

Because even Liverpool's number one scorer seemed to have fallen for his trick.

But if he could enter the deeper levels of Chen Hero's mind...

I'm afraid Villas-Boas wouldn't be so happy.

Because although Chen Hero put down the newspaper with a disdainful smile, he didn't really become arrogant and underestimate the enemy because of this.

What he was thinking was—since Manchester City doesn't want to win this game, then I'll send them on their way and let them die a quick death.

Yes, he didn't underestimate the enemy. On the contrary, he was even more ruthless and serious.

This time he was going to make Manchester City die without a burial place!

This was his style. He would not underestimate the enemy because of the opponent's performance. He only had one thought when dealing with enemies, and that was to kill them without mercy!

As long as they were enemies, that was the end, and there was absolutely no other possibility. He was not the kind of person who would sympathize with the enemy. Don't think that you can paralyze Chen Hero by pretending to be pitiful.

Chen Hero's goal was to win the championship at all costs. Anyone who dared to stand in his way and prevent him from winning the championship, whether it was Manchester City or Barcelona, would eventually be trampled under his feet and crushed to powder!