Having attended Cassano's wedding, Chen Yingxiong went on vacation with Cabral.

Their vacation was short, especially considering Cabral's situation—she still had to work. So Chen Yingxiong cherished the time he spent with Cabral.

Chen Yingxiong, as a player, at least had a vacation.

The club's management wasn't so lucky.

Since the end of the season, Niang had been swamped with work.

First, he needed to announce the new head coach.

Last season, many media outlets speculated about who would be Liverpool's new head coach. They listed many candidates, and bookmakers even offered odds. However, Liverpool Football Club never announced their answer.

Regardless of the media outlet or bookmaker, Martin O'Neill, the well-known English football coach, was ranked first on their lists. The second and third candidates varied. Some favored Mourinho, some favored Boas, who had been sacked from Chelsea, and others favored former Manchester City coach Mark Hughes or former England coach McClaren.

Obviously, Martin O'Neill was the most favored by everyone, and there was a reason for this consensus. Martin O'Neill was known as a capable head coach in English football, with a good reputation and a good track record. He had experience coaching small teams like Norwich and Aston Villa, as well as the success of coaching a Scottish Premier League giant like Celtic.

So he was definitely capable of coaching Liverpool.

Secondly, O'Neill's reputation was not much lower than that of Ferguson, Wenger, Dalglish, and others. He was also very successful as a player, so he had enough authority in the locker room to keep people in line.

In addition, Martin O'Neill had been at home, so the club didn't need to pay other clubs a termination fee to bring him in.

Considering all these factors, Martin O'Neill was indeed the most suitable head coach for Liverpool.

But everyone was just guessing, and no one had confirmed it from other sources.

Now that the season was over, the answer was revealed. Liverpool's new head coach was Martin O'Neill!

"We are very pleased to announce this decision. Martin will be our coach, and we believe that under his leadership, Liverpool will definitely be reborn!" At the press conference announcing the signing of Martin O'Neill to Liverpool, Liverpool's general manager, Niang Lu, said.

Martin O'Neill next to him smiled and nodded slightly.

Then the two stood up and shook hands, allowing reporters to take pictures. Under the flashing lights, the two smiled, and the atmosphere was harmonious.

It looked like this handshake was a match made in heaven.

But in reality, the specific negotiation and signing process was definitely not as easy as the press conference showed.

Liverpool Football Club didn't wait until they announced Dalglish's dismissal before looking for a head coach, because that would have been too late.

You should know that "Black Cats" Sunderland was also looking for a head coach at the time, and Martin O'Neill was their target.

If they waited until Dalglish was confirmed to be dismissed before contacting Martin O'Neill, the Northern Irish coach would have been snatched away by Sunderland.

Niang never fights unprepared battles. When he decided to fire Dalglish, he had already begun looking for Dalglish's successor. And this search process didn't last long, because the candidates were easy to find, and there weren't many. Just like the media analyzed, there was only one person who met Liverpool's requirements, and that was Martin O'Neill.

Therefore, Niang had already contacted Martin O'Neill not long after the season started.

O'Neill resigned in May 2010 because of a conflict with the chairman of Aston Villa over transfer issues. He didn't work for the next year and was at home. So Niang had been eyeing this coach for a long time.

He ran to talk to O'Neill, hoping that O'Neill could coach Liverpool.

If the negotiations followed the requirements of a traditional English club, there shouldn't be any problems with this signing. The club manager would say to the head coach, "Come here and be our manager." As long as the terms were agreed upon, there would be no problem.

But Liverpool was different from other Premier League teams.

An Italian managed the club, and Italian clubs were completely different from English clubs.

Niang wanted to have the final say in transfers. He wanted to control the power of transfers exclusively. He would decide on the club's team-building policy, and he would sell and buy players.

But Martin O'Neill firmly disagreed with this approach. As a traditional English head coach and manager, Martin O'Neill was used to being the manager of the team, in charge of the entire team, and he had the final say on all matters related to the team.

As for the treatment issue, there was nothing to talk about. Niang offered Martin O'Neill a high price that would definitely satisfy O'Neill. But if the preconditions couldn't be agreed upon, there would be no opportunity to present the subsequent offers.

The two sides were deadlocked on this issue for a long time. If it weren't for the fact that Liverpool was a traditional giant in English football and had a certain appeal to O'Neill, O'Neill might have already signed with Sunderland.

In fact, when O'Neill was at Aston Villa, he wasn't the kind of head coach who had absolute power. Otherwise, he wouldn't have fallen out with the chairman of Aston Villa over transfer issues.

Before that, he had cooperated quite happily with Aston Villa Chairman Randy Lerner. He knew Aston Villa's position—it was a mid-level team, so the club would inevitably make a profit by buying and selling players to survive. Today's football is already an era of capital football, and he wasn't so stubborn as to think that football couldn't be tainted by money.

Therefore, he had a relatively pleasant time at Aston Villa before. But this time, he fell out with Aston Villa Chairman Randy Lerner because the American went too far. Randy Lerner not only didn't plan to continue selling players in the summer to strengthen the team, but also planned to sell the team's core players.

In fact, Aston Villa had sold their main players before, but selling one per season was still within Martin O'Neill's tolerance range. After selling one, he could use his ability to create another one.

But this time, Randy Lerner went too far. He actually planned to sell the team's two main wingers in one go, one was Milner, and the other was Ashley Young. This was unacceptable to O'Neill. To him, the club selling one main player every year could be seen as a normal practice of letting chickens lay eggs and then selling the eggs. But the current practice had become killing the chicken to get the eggs, and he couldn't agree to it no matter what.

Because of this, he resigned in anger.

Niang analyzed the detailed reasons for Martin O'Neill's resignation and believed that Martin O'Neill wasn't the kind of person who had to insist on his own power. In fact, he could be flexible. Otherwise, he wouldn't have tolerated Aston Villa selling him a main player every year.

That's why Niang went to find Martin O'Neill. If O'Neill was the kind of chaste and loyal head coach who had to get the power that belonged to him, otherwise he would rather die than yield, Niang wouldn't have looked for him at all.

Since they could talk, it would be easy to handle.

The next thing was nothing more than a process of negotiation and compromise between the two sides. Martin O'Neill hoped to dig out more power from Niang, while Niang wanted to get O'Neill at the lowest possible cost.

In the end, they reached an agreement that Niang's transfer actions must first be reviewed by Martin O'Neill. As the head coach, he had the right to make suggestions, and Niang guaranteed to respect the head coach's wishes as much as possible. In this way, the main power of transfer was still in Niang's hands. As compensation, Niang promised to vigorously introduce players to strengthen the team's strength and would not easily sell the main players, unless the head coach requested the sale.

Then, in terms of contract treatment, he also gave O'Neill a price that satisfied him very much.

In this way, the two parties signed an agreement, but it was never made public.

It wasn't until the end of the season that Liverpool officially announced the news.

The news wasn't surprising, and everyone had guessed it correctly before.

Many people even felt that from Niang's decision, although he was an Italian-Chinese, his understanding of English football was still reliable.

Liverpool's choice of Martin O'Neill was the best result. It was better than the unrealistic Mourinho, right? In addition, Mark Hughes and McClaren's strength were not as good as Martin O'Neill's. It seemed that Liverpool fans could really start to look forward to a stable morale.

During his time at Aston Villa, O'Neill led the team to European qualification for three consecutive seasons, keeping a team that wasn't very strong in the upper-middle position. Looking at Aston Villa's ninth-place finish last season without Martin O'Neill, missing out on any European events, you can see Martin O'Neill's level.

Martin O'Neill, who graduated from Brian Clough, is one of the few people who have achieved success in both his playing career and his coaching career.

Coaching Liverpool is an important opportunity for him. If he can succeed at Liverpool, his reputation will not only be limited to the British Isles but will also spread to the European continent.

Who doesn't have some ambition? Martin O'Neill naturally also hopes to become a figure on par with Ferguson and Wenger. That's why he would rather give up some of the power that originally belonged to him to coach Liverpool.

Whether a team wants to rebuild or make changes, the most important person is the head coach.

If the head coach is not determined, the team's pre-season preparation plan cannot be carried out.

After Martin O'Neill signed with Liverpool, Niang could launch his transfer offensive.

Of course, now he has to discuss it with O'Neill.