Chapter 70
The game ended with Wolves winning by two goals, and the first victory that Aston Villa coach Bruce was looking forward to will take some time to come.
"Add a contact number."
After the game, after Wei Le shook hands with Bruce, he found Grealish who was about to go back to the locker room.
Grealish was incredulous when he heard that Wei Le wanted to add his contact number. This was not reasonable in any way. The opponent's coach personally added the contact number of a young player?
But in any case, Grealish felt that Wei Le did not seem to be a bad-hearted person, and it should be a good thing to get in touch with a coach of Wei Le's level.
Grealish did not understand it, but still agreed to Wei Le's friend invitation.
But why did he find me? Why not find someone else?
Grealish really couldn't figure it out, but Wei Le obviously didn't want to say anything more. He had already gone to greet the Wolves players who were leaving the field.
While Wolves were celebrating their victory, Brighton coach Hughton was now facing a formidable enemy.
"The board has issued a death order to win this game." Assistant coach Paul Nevin said with some concern.
"Damn it, why are they so lenient." Hughton covered his head with a headache.
Brighton has only one goal this season, that is, to advance to the Premier League. After the team chairman Tony Bloom took over the team in 2009, he built a new stadium for the team, which was later called the American Express Stadium, and built what was then known as the best training base in England.
The main purpose of all he did was to ensure that the team would perform well in the next few years.
Since being promoted to the Championship in 2011, Brighton has experienced ups and downs, ranking fourth in the league in 2012 and ending 20th in the 2014 season. In the previous season, Brighton ranked third in the league and also made it to the promotion play-offs.
But the promotion play-offs are so difficult that Brighton still failed to be promoted smoothly in the 2016 season.
This season, Tony Bloom chose to continue to support head coach Hughton and his team, who still regard promotion as their top priority.
But so far, Hughton's team is still a distance away from the first echelon of Wolves and Newcastle. If this momentum continues until the end of the season, I am afraid that Brighton will still need to go through the promotion play-offs again.
Brighton is indeed afraid of the promotion play-offs.
In the 2013 and 2014 seasons, Brighton locked a place in the play-offs with the fourth and sixth places respectively, but both failed. Not to mention the 2016 season that just passed, the team lost to Sheffield Wednesday with a score of 1-2 in the semi-finals of the promotion play-offs.
Of course, even if they beat Sheffield Wednesday, there will be Hull City, which was strongly promoted that season, blocking them.
Therefore, the team chairman Tony Bloom hopes that the team can be promoted without playing the hateful promotion play-offs. You know, the top two teams in the Championship can be promoted directly without playing the play-offs.
The team also studied that Newcastle would be the main obstacle for Brighton to upgrade this season. They believed that if Newcastle United aimed at the championship, there would be no problem. Brighton could just secure the second place in the league.
All this seemed to be fine. They analyzed all the teams in the league and came to this decision that was very favorable to them.
Then, Wolves changed their head coach.
The new head coach was named Wei Le.
This was not a big deal, although the operation of Wolves was obviously not expected by the Brighton management. But the question is, how could Wei Le's Wolves be so strong?
Brighton was stunned to see Wolves' ranking go up step by step, and finally even surpassed what they thought was the most critical opponent of this season, Newcastle United.
Although in the league matchup, the direct confrontation between Wolves and Newcastle United ended with Newcastle United's victory, and Wolves' position as the league leader was taken away by Newcastle United. But now Wolves are chasing Newcastle closely, with only four points between the two teams. It can be said that if Newcastle makes a mistake, Wolves will take back the top spot without hesitation.
There was nothing wrong with the two strange families fighting each other. Those teams in the lower and middle levels of the league were enjoying the show with a bag of melon seeds each, but Brighton was anxious.
I don't care if you two fight, but one of you should give up my second place!
Brighton's well-planned promotion road was threatened. Originally, Brighton thought their opponent was Newcastle United, but the problem was that Newcastle United didn'tI don't think highly of him, but they played well with Wolves.
In fact, Brighton under Hughton should be very competitive in the league. The record of eight wins, four draws and three losses is definitely reasonable for a top team in the English Championship.
In addition, the team's lineup is also quite strong. The back line has Duffy who is at his peak and Dunk, the central defender who still plays for Brighton in reality; the midfield line has Sidwell, a midfielder who has been active in the Premier League for a long time; and the wing has Connockate, a fast horse who made a name for himself in Leicester City.
The only shortcoming is the forward line. The two forwards Baldock and Colum Murray did not score many goals in the previous games, which affected the team's record.
But this is harmless, because the direct play adopted by Hughton's team can often achieve multiple points.
The question now is that Hughton is a little worried. Can his old direct play really penetrate the Wolves' defense? To be honest, it’s not that no team has used the direct pass against Wolves, but most of them are not very effective, and on the contrary, they are prone to counterattacks and goals.
After watching the game between Wolves and Aston Villa, Hughton was more certain of this.
He was very sure that since head coach Willer chose to rotate widely against Aston Villa, it was to conserve his energy to play against Brighton. Willer would definitely not hold back on himself!
“I think they will take the initiative to attack.” Assistant coach Paul Nevin said.
Hughton turned around in surprise, revealing an expression of “Do I need to tell you this?”
Paul Nevin was a little embarrassed, he continued, "Or should we continue to defend and counterattack?"
"Defend and counterattack..." Hutton sighed, "Can we hold on? Newcastle also wants to defend and counterattack, did they hold on?"
Paul Nevin was silent this time, Hutton thought about it, and said firmly, "We have to fight them head-on!"
"This..."
"They have only lost two games this season, one to Newcastle and one to Norwich. What is worth learning is the game against Newcastle. In that game, Newcastle United completely controlled the midfield, which was the key to victory."
"In the Norwich game, I don't actually know how Wolves lost. It feels like it was completely accidental." Hutton scratched his head, "There is actually not much reference material left for us."
"Then how do you want to play?" Paul Nevin asked.
"We..." Hutton hardened his heart, "We fight them in the midfield!"