Chapter 105 Unexpected

Having defeated Manchester United, Zhao Gang finally had new system points: 10.

Zhao Gang maxed out his passing stat immediately.

He glanced at his attribute panel.

Strength: 81. Stamina: 80.

Shooting: 100. Passing: 100.

Dribbling: 41. Interception: 36. Tackling: 38.

Set Pieces: 100. Speed: 66. Heading: 5.

Available System Points: 1.

Damage Immunity Card (Unactivated).

Lucky Card, 1.

His stats had also improved somewhat in training, but only at a low level. Once the rating was too high, it was impossible to increase it through training.

Those things were almost useless with acquired effort.

The next opponent was Ipswich Town, a team with no hope of promotion and no worries about relegation.

Their fighting spirit wasn't high. This time, Farkle didn't send out an all-reserve squad; he wanted to continue to see the chemistry between Zhao Gang and the two forwards.

Against Manchester United, Zhao Gang had provided two assists, one to each of them.

Carrow Road was now almost impossible to find an empty seat.

The fans had unprecedented passion.

It was as if Norwich was now invincible.

And that was indeed the case. Norwich's players were now united and cohesive.

They had endless fighting spirit and would not be timid no matter who they faced.

If they could beat Manchester United, what about these Championship opponents?

Their goal was the championship!

The fans' earth-shattering cheers made the Ipswich players tremble.

Even though Norwich had a large number of substitutes on the field, in the midst of the fans' cheers, Norwich's midfield and forward line were almost completely suppressing Ipswich.

Zhao Gang played the entire game, contributing two goals and one assist.

Hoolahan and Ospina had both been substituted off, but Zhao Gang was still on the field.

The reason was simple: Farkle's tactics for the next game, a visit to Manchester United, had already been arranged.

Zhao Gang would not start, and might not even play.

The last time Norwich visited Old Trafford, they were thrashed 4-0.

This time, Farkle didn't think his team could beat Manchester United either, as long as they didn't lose by more than three goals.

As long as they could eliminate Manchester United, they could create a huge miracle!

From the second half performance against Manchester United in the previous game, Farkle already knew that there was a huge gap between Norwich and Manchester United.

If Manchester United worked together, Norwich would have no chance at all.

So for the midweek game, Farkle decided to defend to the end, with Zhao Gang's defense being practically non-existent, he would be on the bench ready to be called upon.

After this game, Farkle naturally found Zhao Gang first and explained the situation to him.

Zhao Gang didn't have many objections to Farkle's arrangement, but he was a little worried that if they couldn't hold on, his permanent damage immunity card would become invalid.

Moreover, the Lucky Card could only be used if he was on the field. If he didn't get on the field, and Manchester United equalized or even took the lead, it would be a big problem.

But of course, Zhao Gang couldn't say these things.

He had once said that he was a warrior and would follow the coach's arrangements.

He had always done so.

After this game, the media didn't know what words to use to describe Zhao Gang's performance.

Farkle moved Zhao Gang's position back, which didn't silence his attack, but instead made his cooperation with the two forwards even more tacit.

The Zhao Gang who fell back showed a terrible passing vision.

If Zhao Gang used to be a goal-scoring opportunist, the current Zhao Gang could not only score goals, but also orchestrate in the midfield.

That exquisite pass, any opponent who underestimated him would pay a heavy price!

Even if his dribbling and defense were still terrible, no media was willing to mention such things.

His super offensive ability had already covered up his shortcomings.

Immediately after this game, news came out that sounded unreliable, but seemed to be expected.

Ferguson actually contacted Perrin, trying to bring Zhao Gang to Old Trafford.

This was revealed by one of Perrin's close friends, who had previously revealed Suarez's transfer to Barcelona.

So the news was extremely credible!

And the criticism of David from various reporters almost disappeared instantly.

If Ferguson offered a price for Zhao Gang, it was obviously authorized by Manchester United's management.

Once, because Mourinho wanted to get Zhao Gang, Manchester United's management reduced their willingness to buy Zhao Gang to a minimum, which was why David gave Zhao Gang such a low rating.

After all, Mourinho would become Manchester United's coach next season. Manchester United and Mourinho had actually reached a verbal agreement.

And what Manchester United most tabooed was the coach interfering with player transfers.

Why would Manchester United suddenly want to buy Zhao Gang now?

And why was this news released before the second leg of the Europa League match between Manchester United and Norwich?

Was this a smokescreen, or was it Manchester United's true intention?

And even more explosive news followed: Van Gaal took the initiative to resign!

Van Gaal's resignation was expected.

But he didn't expect it to come so quickly!

And the person who replaced Van Gaal was even stranger: one of the youth training coaches, Cisse!

Although Cisse was only the interim coach, he and Zhao Gang had a very good relationship.

It was because of his recommendation that Zhao Gang came to Norwich!

At this time, suddenly letting Cisse be the interim coach made the media believe that Manchester United was deliberately showing goodwill to Zhao Gang, and sincerely hoped that Zhao Gang could come to Manchester United!

After all, of so many coach candidates, they only chose Cisse, one of the youth training coaches, as the interim coach, which was somewhat illogical.

Even if they chose a youth training coach, it should be Solskjaer, who had Manchester United DNA, so why did they choose the unknown Cisse?

The day before Norwich visited Old Trafford, the media had already been hyping this matter.

Zhao Gang was no longer the unknown goal-scoring machine he used to be.

Previously, among the Premier League giants, only the Manchester clubs had not shown interest in Zhao Gang.

The other coaches had all mentioned Zhao Gang, and Liverpool, which was in the midst of a revival and lacked Suarez, also showed a strong interest in this forward.

Arsenal, Tottenham, and especially Chelsea, whose bid from Abramovich had already exceeded £30 million.

Now, the appearance of Manchester United was driving Zhao Gang's price even higher.

Sources said that Manchester United had prepared a transfer fee of £35 million!

This was not too expensive for Manchester United.

However, what David had said before was somewhat of a slap in the face.

David believed that Dragon Country players were not good enough and could not play in the Premier League at all.

Now, however, they were seriously overpaying to buy Zhao Gang.

However, more media interpreted it as David being influenced by the fixed impression that Dragon Country players had given him before, which was why he said those strange things.

Now, seeing Zhao Gang's performance, David had made the most correct choice.

David did not choose to continue to belittle Zhao Gang, but instead asked Ferguson to come forward and try to bring Zhao Gang to Manchester United.

This fully demonstrated David's sincerity and personality.

Previously, the negative news about David had indeed disappeared because of this news about buying Zhao Gang.

Almost all the English media had focused on Zhao Gang in the past few days.

Less than half a day after Manchester United's bid for Zhao Gang, a reporter actually obtained Pep's evaluation of Zhao Gang through Guardiola's team.

"Zhao is a very good player, not only because he can score goals, but also because of the choices he makes after every touch. He plays with his brain. At his age, he reminds me of another player, Messi. Of course, he still has a long way to go to reach the current Messi, but he already has a shadow of him."

Everyone in the world who knew football knew Guardiola's love for Messi. In his eyes, there was no better player in the world than Messi.

To be able to say that Zhao Gang already had a shadow of Messi was proof of Guardiola's recognition of Messi.

A coach like Guardiola would never say that he had been interested in a player for a long time and wanted to buy him, except for Messi, a personality that was completely the opposite of Mourinho.

The fact that he could say such a thing meant that he wanted to have a player like Zhao Gang.

For a time, Zhao Gang's name finally appeared on the front page of English newspapers in a true sense.

All the media focused on this Dragon Country teenager who had not yet participated in a top league.

All the Premier League Big Six teams had shown interest in Zhao Gang.

This was unprecedented!

What Mourinho liked was naturally Zhao Gang's non-sticky ball and his precise grasp of shooting.

What he needed was various direct and simple forwards.

Klopp and Pochettino needed a forward to supplement their teams because of the departure of Suarez and Bale.

Wenger liked Zhao Gang's age and the level he had shown; he liked these young players.

Manchester United simply bought whoever others liked.

Only Guardiola saw Zhao Gang's judgment of the situation on the field and valued his ability to pass the ball.

No matter what the reason, all the Premier League clubs had more or less shown their attitude and hoped to get Zhao Gang.

After defeating Manchester United, these coaches were particularly looking forward to him.

This was simply groundbreaking for a Dragon Country player who was only eighteen years old.

What mattered was not the huge market of that football wasteland, but the purely footballing purpose!

Because of the time difference, Dragon Country fans received this news around 10 p.m.

Even though Zhao Gang had performed like a god in the Championship, they still felt dazed when they saw the news headlines.

It felt fake.

It was clickbait!

It was a scam for traffic!

David almost wrote his contempt for Dragon Country players on his face, so how could Ferguson be interested in Zhao Gang?

Guardiola had never commented on Zhao Gang, so how could he suddenly feel that Zhao Gang had a shadow of Messi?

Little did they know that Ferguson had noticed Zhao Gang a long time ago, but he had already retired, and David had said some strange things for the sake of himself and Manchester United's face, so of course he couldn't say anything.

If it weren't for David, Ferguson would have come forward long ago and used his connections to settle Perrin.

At that time, Guardiola hadn't shown interest yet. With Ferguson coming forward and Manchester United's heritage, wouldn't it have been easy to sign Zhao Gang?

As a result, now, Guardiola had also come out to stir things up.

Ferguson scolded Guardiola and David together when he heard the news.

David was a reckless fool, arrogant, thinking that Manchester United had the heritage and fans, so they could just manipulate others.

As a result, now, the best opportunity had been missed!

That bald Guardiola was full of bad ideas, and he only revealed some news when Manchester United showed their interest in Zhao Gang.

That was just to not want to see Manchester United do well!

And Guardiola wasn't really doing it on purpose.

He originally had basically no interest in Zhao Gang. What he needed was not a poacher, but a forward who could support and pass the ball.

According to Will's information, Zhao Gang didn't have this ability.

But after Guardiola watched the game between Zhao Gang and Manchester United, he felt that he had been deceived by Will.

Was that what he called unable to pass the ball?

That vision, that willingness to pass the ball, was definitely top-level talent!

That was why he revealed the news that he was interested in Zhao Gang.

And now, the most excited person was not the Dragon Country fans, not Zhao Gang himself, but Perrin.

Zhao Gang's transfer fee was definitely not as high as Suarez's, but Zhao Gang was someone he had single-handedly promoted!

He had single-handedly turned him from being worthless to having a value of tens of millions of pounds!

Zhao Gang was like a sapling that he had carefully cultivated, watching him grow up little by little. This kind of feeling was definitely not comparable to other players.

And Zhao Gang almost never asked about any commercial matters, and he hadn't even asked him about the endorsement contract yet!

This athlete, who became famous at a young age, had this kind of maturity and boundless trust in him.

This gave Perrin a long-lost feeling of emotion.

"Soon, soon you will be greatly rewarded for your choice." Perrin believed that it wouldn't be long before the sponsors would come one after another, and he wouldn't even need to contact them.

They would come waving money, fighting to the point of bloodshed.

At this time, Zhao Gang's innate advantages would be displayed.

Behind him were the support of hundreds of millions of fans!

Without any special publicity, he already had hundreds of millions of supporters!

Yao Ming was the best example.

There were actually many players with the same level as Yao Ming, but how many had a commercial value that could be compared to him?

Zhao Gang didn't need to be the best to get far more attention than the best players!

Hearing Guardiola's evaluation, Zhao Gang was somewhat moved.

In his previous life, he had greatly respected Guardiola. Guardiola had almost created an era, making the whole world try to find ways to defeat that Barcelona.

His attitude towards football was what Zhao Gang had always yearned for.

Zhao Gang admired excellent players like Messi and Ronaldo, but his idols were never those two.

It was Guardiola and Sun Jihai.

Hearing his idol's positive evaluation of him, Zhao Gang was indeed a little unable to restrain himself.

He had long thought about being able to go to Manchester City and work with Guardiola.

It was just that he didn't say it. He didn't want to use Perrin's connections to get into Manchester City through the back door. He wanted to attract Guardiola's attention with his own ability.

Before, when he heard Perrin wanted him to go to Manchester City, he was actually very excited, but he didn't show it.

Now, this opportunity had greatly increased.

In this away game against Manchester United, he must strive to play and show himself again!

Norwich was facing a Manchester United that had changed their coach. The current Manchester United didn't need any tactics arranged by any coach at all. As long as their fighting spirit was enough, they could beat Norwich to the ground with their personal ability.

In order to prove that it was Van Gaal's tactics that led to Manchester United's failure, all of Manchester United's players would muster all their energy to face Norwich!