Allardyce's words caused so many things, but no one paid attention to him. However, Chen Hero had already become fixated on him. He swore that as long as he encountered a team coached by Allardyce, whether it was the current West Ham United or any team in the future, he would never let it go, and he wouldn't stop until he killed him.

But now it was a little early to talk about revenge.

The second round of the league arrived as scheduled amidst the noise, with Liverpool challenging Aston Villa away.

This was the old club team before Martin O'Neill resigned. He had coached this team for four seasons, and during these four seasons, he brought earth-shattering changes to Aston Villa. Before that, Aston Villa was a mid-level team that could only maintain its livelihood by selling players.

But under the leadership of Martin O'Neill, Aston Villa qualified for European competitions for three consecutive seasons. This was a very remarkable achievement.

But in the end, Martin O'Neill still parted ways with Aston Villa, because he could not tolerate the chairman of Aston Villa forcibly interfering in his team-building policy. He could accept selling a main player every year, because he still had time to train new main players. But selling his two main wingers in one year, with good wingers being so scarce these days, made him wonder what he was supposed to play with.

In a fit of anger, Martin O'Neill resigned.

Aston Villa didn't fare well after O'Neill's resignation. After qualifying for European competitions for three consecutive seasons, the season after Martin O'Neill left, it was all for naught, and they didn't get anything. The impact of O'Neill's resignation was immediately apparent.

After resigning from Aston Villa, Martin O'Neill spent an entire season at home.

Now that he had returned to coach Liverpool, facing his old club in the second game, it could be considered an arrangement of fate.

However, because of Chen Hero's matter, there weren't many media outlets focused on the grievances between Martin O'Neill and his old club. Neither side hyped up the matter much before the game.

Aston Villa seemed to be very low-key about welcoming Liverpool to their home stadium. Martin O'Neill also resolutely refrained from actively mentioning his past coaching experience there.

But the day before the game, the media finally brought up the matter. This was the biggest gimmick of the game, and it would have been unprofessional for the media to let it pass.

Chen Hero's matter had to give way to the game for the time being. At the pre-match press conference, a reporter asked Martin O'Neill how he felt about returning to Villa Park.

Martin O'Neill didn't actively mention Aston Villa not because he was afraid of the past, nor because he felt indebted, but because he didn't want to be exploited by the media. Just like Chen Hero's matter, the English media had no bottom line. In order to attract attention and ratings, they would use any means, even spending a lot of money to disguise themselves as Middle Eastern sheikhs to conduct "fishing-style interviews," not to mention casually distorting your meaning, which was simply their daily routine.

But since the reporters had already caught wind of it, if he still didn't say anything, it would inevitably leave room for speculation, and who knew what the media would come up with.

"I spent four very good seasons at Villa Park, and I like the fans here. I'm very happy to be back at Villa Park."

He spoke in a very formulaic way, all platitudes, with no real content, just nonsense.

But the reporters could only listen, after all, he had answered their question, and you couldn't run over and accuse him of not speaking his mind.

On the Aston Villa side, the club's American chairman, Randy Lerner, also highly praised Martin O'Neill's work at Villa Park. On the surface, you couldn't tell that the two had ever been at odds.

But that was also normal. Martin O'Neill and Randy Lerner had fallen out because of work matters, not personal grudges. Now that the two were no longer in a subordinate relationship, and Martin O'Neill was no longer coaching at Aston Villa, there were no more work issues, and naturally there was no more conflict between the two sides.

Meeting for a drink and saying a few nice words to each other in the newspaper wasn't difficult for two adults.

But this made the media, who were eager to dig up something of value from the conflict between Martin O'Neill and Randy Lerner, feel indignant, thinking that they had worked for nothing.

They had no choice but to turn their attention to Chen Hero. Now all of England knew that Chen Hero was the media's favorite player, because his big mouth and personality made it easy to stir up trouble. This allowed Chen Hero to further expand his popularity and influence, while the media's sales and ratings also increased, a win-win situation for everyone.

But what grudges could they hype up between Chen Hero and Aston Villa?

A group of people ran to look through last season's records, and they really found something—this was Chen Hero's first time playing at Villa Park since joining Liverpool. Last season, when Liverpool played Aston Villa away, Chen Hero was serving a six-game suspension.

So if they had to find some meaning for this game, this was it, but…

The reporters clicked their tongues, feeling that it wasn't enough.

Chen Hero's first time, how could they light the fire?

Chen Hero was now famous, and even if he didn't actively provoke trouble, there were still people worrying about provoking trouble for him. They were like hunters in World of Warcraft, desperately misguiding Chen Hero and then opening the monster, making him, the mt, pull the aggro.

Soon, a genius media person came up with an idea, and a newspaper was the first to propose this concept—"…Hero has never played at Villa Park before. As one of the few stadiums he has not yet conquered, will he be able to add Villa Park to his list of defeated opponents this time?"

This was sowing discord. Although Chen Hero had never expressed anything similar, the Aston Villa fans would definitely be influenced by the media, and might even do something interesting.

If Chen Hero didn't score, they could follow this line of thought to turn Villa Park into a fortress that Chen Hero couldn't break through. This approach could make Aston Villa fans feel proud, and they would pay more attention to Chen Hero scoring at their home stadium.

At the same time, it could also arouse Chen Hero's competitive spirit.

Then the two sides would be successfully pitted against each other, and the media wouldn't need to deliberately participate too much in the subsequent events.

If Chen Hero scored, they would praise Chen Hero's achievements and then create something similar to a countdown, telling everyone how many stadiums Chen Hero had not yet conquered. This would not only arouse Aston Villa fans' dissatisfaction with Chen Hero, but also make fans of other teams feel a sense of crisis. When they encountered the same situation, the media could immediately hype it up as soon as they mentioned this topic.

And they wouldn't have to painstakingly lay the groundwork and prepare like they were doing now.

In summary, as long as this topic was handled properly, it was really a topic that could be continuously hyped up for a long time. It was indeed a genius-like idea.

The media's reaction was very quick, and soon television, radio, and newspapers followed up. In less than a day, on the morning of the game day, everyone already knew about it, and it looked quite impressive.

Everyone was discussing whether Chen Hero could conquer Villa Park. The thinking of the general public was driven by the media's manipulation of public opinion. Whatever they said was a hot topic, the public would think was a hot topic—a lot of media were hyping up an event, and it was being discussed on the Internet, in newspapers, on television, and on the radio. If this wasn't a hot topic, what was?

Therefore, in modern society, those who can manipulate public opinion can actually manipulate public sentiment. The public sentiment that is truly decided by the people themselves, through their own brains, is actually very weak, accounting for only a small part of the overall public sentiment.

Because in this world of information, your thoughts and ideas will inevitably be influenced by public opinion.

Everyone was enthusiastically discussing this matter, and bookmakers had even offered different odds for whether Chen Hero could score in this game, and at what time.

Even Chen Hero's teammates were discussing this matter.

Suárez even said to Chen Hero: "Hero, I bought you to score in the first half! You have to live up to my expectations when the game comes!"

"You look down on Hero so much, Luis? I bought Hero to score in the first half hour!" Škrtel chimed in.

"I bought the second half…" Sánchez said weakly.

"No way, Álex, you have so little confidence in your boss?"

"Just to be on the safe side…"

"I bet you guys want to win money, so you're going to assist him like crazy, right?"

"Of course! Why not?"

A group of people were discussing this, but Chen Hero couldn't help but roll his eyes.

Chen Hero, who was completely unaware of the truth, thought that the English media were really boring for this kind of thing to become a hot topic.

Was Aston Villa very strong? Was Villa Park a devil's home stadium?

Neither, so was there any suspense about him scoring? Was it worth offering odds for this kind of thing?

You bunch of idle people!

Chen Hero despised these people in his heart, but after he returned to his hotel room, he opened his laptop and used online payment to buy a 1,000-pound lottery ticket, betting that he could score within the first fifteen minutes of the game.

The odds for this were the highest, currently 1 to 13, which meant that if he scored, this 1,000 pounds could turn into 13,000 pounds.

If it wasn't because this website stipulated that the maximum personal bet was 1,000 pounds, he wouldn't mind directly throwing in a million pounds.

Not only that, but he also called his friends, such as Cassano, Arshavin, Hamsik, Cabrera, and even De Cúrcio in Italy, and told them about this matter, hoping that each of them would buy a 1,000-pound bet on Chen Hero scoring in the first fifteen minutes.

De Cúrcio, on the other hand, wanted to buy one for everyone on his agent team.

"What are you doing, Hero?" Someone asked in confusion.

"Giving you a chance to make money for nothing, do you want it?" Chen Hero replied.

You use me to make money, so I have to make you bleed a little!