Chapter 60: September
Genius digger. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info
This title was silently buckled on Wang Shuai's head.
And our protagonist doesn't react to this at all.
After formulating a plan to develop young players, Wang Shuai had a hunch that his aggressive introduction of talented players would attract everyone's attention. But the introduction is also the introduction, and the genius is also the genius, Wang Shuai wants to say that he sees people so accurately, can he say that he can see the attributes of these people? No one believes me.
In short, in the eyes of everyone who were speechless or envious or expectant, Wang Shuai still did what he had to do without changing his face.
……
The play-offs for the second leg of the Europa League kicked off Villa's unbeatable campaign.
According to FA rules, Premier League teams only start to enter the League Cup in the second round. And after the second leg of the play-offs, Villa's Carabao Cup journey this season has officially begun.
Villa's first League Cup opponent was Blackpool, a League Two side. In the face of Giurgeuvilla, he was able to win 6:0 with a semi-main lineup, not to mention Blackpool, which was much weaker.
7:0, the same lineup of young players, the same big win, Villa easily advanced.
The next game is back in the Premier League, with Villa's opponent being Bournemouth. The opponents finished seventh from bottom last season, in the lower middle of the league, and lost their first two league games this season, which shows that the results have not improved.
Villa, who has already lost to Tottenham Hotspur, does not dare to take it lightly in the league, although the opponent is not strong, Wang Shuai still sent a full main lineup.
Until the end of the game, Wang Shuai couldn't help but be afraid for a while, fortunately it was the whole main lineup on the field, otherwise it was really possible to overturn in the gutter. For no other reason, the team's poor form reappeared, and until the 70th minute of the game, Villa was still down 0-1. Fortunately, Wang Shuai returned to form at the last moment and scored two goals in a row, and Villa finally narrowly defeated the opponent 2:1 and kept the three points at home.
After this game, the summer transfer window is about to close, and Villa have also ushered in a short break of half a month. While Villa rested, the Champions League play-offs were also over, which meant that the Europa League group draw was about to begin.
……
Qualification for the group stage of the Europa League is divided into three parts.
The first part is the teams that qualified directly for the group stage last season, with a total of 16 teams.
The second part is the teams that have been eliminated in the final round of the Champions League play-offs this season, with a total of 10 teams.
The third part is the teams that have qualified from the Europa League play-offs this season, with a total of 22 teams, and Villa is one of them.
The 48 teams will be drawn for the group stage and divided into 12 groups, each to determine the top two teams, and together with the third-placed teams from each group in the Champions League group stage, they will enter the knockout stage of the Europa League, also known as the round of 32.
Of course, it's still a bit far from the knockout round.
Villa have been drawn in Group E in this year's Europa League, joining three teams in Serie A's Roma, Austria's Vienna and Czech Republic side Viktoria Plzen.
Judging from the situation in Group E, Vienna and Plzen are both teams on the same level as Gyurgi, and Villa's only opponent is Roma, so it can be said that there is no need to qualify.
Speaking of Rome, I have to say that they have been very unlucky in recent years. In recent years, due to the injection of funds from the American consortium, the Red Wolves have begun to rise again, but if you really want to talk about the absolute hegemony of Serie A, it is Juventus, so the rise of the Red Wolves has been hit by a blow, and has always been suppressed by Juventus, becoming a veritable second millennium.
The second is the second, if you can't compete with Juventus, you can keep the qualification for the Champions League every year. As a result, just last season, AC Milan, who had been dormant for many years, also rose and managed to squeeze Roma into third place, while the Red Wolves had to start from the Champions League play-offs.
As a result, in this year's play-offs, Roma unfortunately met a strong opponent, Portugal's Porto.
To say that it is strong, Porto is indeed one of the strongest teams in Portugal, but compared to Roma, Porto is still a little worse.
Then in the first leg of the play-offs, Roma drew 1-1 away to Porto and returned to their hometown with an away goal, and it can be said that the promotion situation is very good.
As a result, in the second leg, Roma suffered a 0:3 defeat at home, giving the qualification to the opponent, and the Red Wolves were reduced to the Europa League.
Looking at the situation in Group E, Roma secretly rejoiced, as if good luck had finally befallen him again. Needless to say, there are two teams with fish belly, and the other team from the Premier League has only just advanced this year, and it is not a strong team. As for Villa's previous beats to Liverpool, Tottenham and Manchester United? Who doesn't know that the League Cup and FA Cup are hotbeds of upsets, and such results don't say much.
It's just that the Red Wolf Legion doesn't know that Vera, who is waiting for them, is also a wolf, a wolf in sheep's clothing.
……
Whether Villa will be sheep or wolves, Roma does not know, as the first meeting between the two teams will not be until the end of September. And before that, both Villa and Roma had their own games to play.
The schedule of Roma is not clear to the king, he only knows that Villa's schedule this month is a little too easy.
First up is the league, with Villa's fourth-round opponent being Newcastle, who qualified directly with Villa last season. When they first arrived in England, Villa had to be careful against Newcastle, and that game was won by Wang Shuai's stunner. But after a year, Newcastle is no match for Villa at all, and under the arrangement of Wang Shuai's full main lineup, Villa easily won 5:0.
Then came the first group stage of the Europa League, with Villa hosting Vienna. Due to the four-front battle this season, Wang Shuai had to pick out some games for the main team to rest. And the opponent in this game obviously gave Wang Shuai the opportunity to rotate the lineup. Although the group stage is much more intense than the play-offs, Vienna also followed in the footsteps of Aston Villa, who were semi-main in the team. At 3:0, Villa scored 3 points.
The next day, the fifth round of the Premier League kicked off, with Villa continuing to host Stoke City. Villa's players have been in a bit of a slump due to the game just the day before, but they haven't been in the same formless situation as they were against Middlesbrough. 2:0, Villa had a thrilling win again.
Four days later, in the third round of the Carabao Cup, Villa travelled to St Mary's to take on their old rivals Southampton. In the warm-up match more than a month ago, the two teams played to a 4-4 draw, although both teams did not play at full strength, but it also seems to show that the strength of the two teams is about the same. It's just that after this league game, everyone understands one thing, that is, in the previous warm-up game, it was obvious that Villa put a little more water. The final score was 2-0, and Villa eliminated Southampton in the League Cup for the second season in a row.
On the final weekend of September, Villa were once again up against an old rival, another team who had qualified from the Championship, Brighton. Like Newcastle, Villa are not afraid of the same level of strength last year. 4:0, Villa easily won three consecutive wins in the Premier League.
After that, the final game of September finally arrived, and Villa's underdog campaign officially came to an end.
On September 30, in the second game of the Europa League group stage, Aston Villa challenged Roma away.