Chapter Sixty-Nine: The Inevitable Tide of Injuries

The draw of Manchester City made Gao Bo think more.

Manchester City's form this season has been very inconsistent, the current Manchester City is not the Premier League champion in a few years, they bought a few stars, but this team is very messy and can't form a whole, which is why they have a few first-class stars but they are struggling so much in the Premier League!

In fact, like Manchester City, a small team suddenly gets the investment of big funders, and then frantically brings in strong reinforcements, and the results after that are often not as expected. A team is definitely not a team that can become a strong team by stacking stars, it is not enough to have a group of stars, they also need to integrate these stars to form an overall synergy, in order to bring out the abilities of these stars.

A win over Manchester City in the fifth round would see Luton Town reach the quarter-finals. If you're lucky enough to draw a team that's not that strong in the quarterfinals, and after reaching the semi-finals, you can win the title with two games left..... maybe it's really worth fighting!

FA Cup winners? And he led a team in the second division to win the championship, which is estimated to be the biggest dark horse counterattack in the history of the FA Cup, right?

Gao Bo is full of expectations for such a challenging achievement!

Gao Bo flipped through the calendar and checked the team's schedule.

The fifth round of the FA Cup will be played on 14 February, with just over 20 days to go, but Luton Town has not had much to do in the meantime, with only three league games to go in January, as well as an English Championship and a league game in early February.

Playing five games in more than 20 days, one of which was an unrelated mini-cup competition, such a schedule gives Gao Bo a lot of room to maneuver, and he can even make any changes in the league to let the main team play against Manchester City without worrying about fitness problems.

…….

Once Gobo made his decision, the work of the coaching staff began to revolve around the task of beating Manchester City.

Lin Sen was sent out by Gao Bo, although there was a lot of news about Manchester City in the media, but Gao Bo wanted something more accurate and detailed, Lin Sen was responsible for observing Manchester City's games, and their training conditions, and he had to give an evaluation report on every Manchester City player who could play in the FA Cup.

It's a lot of work.

But plans don't always keep up with the changes.

On 24 January, Luton Town host Bradford.

Bradford are now level on points with Luton Town, only because of goal difference, they sit behind them in the league.

The away Bradford game started with a stubborn posture, and Luton are actually used to it, and most of the second division teams will now adopt such a weak strategy when facing Luton, they stick to the penalty area, and then put one or two fast strikers in front of them, steal one when they have the chance, and try to defend a draw if they don't have the chance.

The first half of the game was uneventful, and at the end of the first half, Luton finally cracked on the opponent's tortoise shell.

Taking advantage of a corner, Luton drove the ball into the box.

Centre-back Jeffrey leaped high to direct the ball to the goal with a header from the opposing centre-back, and the Bradford goalkeeper made a brilliant save to block the ball, but Charlie Austin's clever movement in the box allowed him to get a chance to shoot, and when Charlie scrambled to kick the ball towards goal with the interference of the defender, the goalkeeper was helpless.

In this game, Gao Bo used the card of 7% improvement in headers on Jeffrey, which made the central defender, who is already good at heading and bouncing well, even more powerful in overhead kung fu.

And the eighteen-year-old Jeffrey has become much more mature after honing in the league during this time, and his comprehensive ability in all aspects has been improved a lot compared to half a year ago.

"This kid can be used as a center!"

Gao Bo clapped his hands, applauded his disciple's outstanding performance, and said to John, the assistant coach next to him.

The fans at Wowway Stadium also cheered, and such a goal scene has become commonplace at Wowdon Stadium this season. Charlie Austin was the team's second-leading scorer and the entire stadium chanted the name of the scorer.

Soon the fans already felt that something was wrong, because the scorer Charlie Austin was still lying on the ground, and instead of getting up to celebrate, he was holding his ankles with his hands....

Haruko Sakuragi and her two assistants ran into the arena as quickly as possible.

After a brief inspection, Haruko shook her head towards the sidelines and made a gesture for substitution.

Charlie Austin couldn't hold on and was injured and had to be substituted.

Gao Bo scolded secretly, fortunately, at this time, the first half of the game was almost over, and Gao Bo simply let the team of ten people respond to the battle first, and stood up to the last dozens of seconds of the first half.

"Charlie's ankle is swollen and we're going to go back and take a film now and hopefully he doesn't hurt his ligaments..."

Haruko walked up to Takaba and whispered, judging from her expression, Charlie's injury was not easy...

Blatter did not pose much of a threat to Luton's defence in the second half of the game, as substitute striker Matt Schmidt headed home to make it 2-0.

Exeter City, who are sixth in the league, lost this round of the league, and after the win, Luton Town got 43 points and squeezed into seventh in the league.

However, Gao Bo, who injured a general, was not happy with such a result.

Charlie's injury report was also submitted after the game, but thankfully, there were no ligaments and Charlie was only absent from the team's game for two weeks.

Gao Bo breathed a sigh of relief, fortunately it was not a serious injury. In his impression, Charlie Austin in his previous life was finally constrained by frequent ankle injuries and failed to go further in his career...

Charlie's injury seems to have opened a Pandora's box of injuries.

On January 28, Luton Town challenged Bournemouth away, although Luton defeated the opponent with two headers from high school striker Matt Schmidt, but in the 83rd minute of the game, the team's midfielder Drinkwater fell to the ground after colliding with the opponent, and there was a slight concussion in the head.

In their final league game of January, on 31 January, Luton Town host Boehly.

Luton sealed the win in the first half, with striker Jamie Vardy netting twice in the first half after two 'goal droughts', and Matt Schmidt, who was named a starter due to Charlie's injury, also helping the team to score a goal, and both strikers were in excellent form.

However, at the beginning of the second half, the team's captain Kevin Keane suddenly sat on the ground holding his thigh back muscles in a situation where he didn't fight.

The thirty-two-year-old veteran suffered a muscle strain in his hind leg ....

This is the third player on Luton's injury list this time.

In December, when the schedule was tightest, Luton did not have any injuries, but in January, when there were not so many games, Luton continued to have injuries to the main players, which made Gao Bo quite helpless.

However, injuries are something that every team needs to deal with, and Luton Town is no exception, and when it comes, I can only say that I am unlucky.