Became The Premier League’S Youngest Manager [EN]: Chapter 12

12. Interim Manager

“Oh, does something feel off here?”

Having finished an unscheduled meeting with Helena, Hyungmin left with a strange feeling and headed to the training ground.

He arrived a bit late to the Banfield Training Ground, where the morning session was underway. He tilted his head, questioning Arthur, who was leading the training in his stead.

The players, weaving through various sized circles, triangles, and squares marked by cones, passing the ball in short bursts, displayed a passion and energy that had been hard to find in recent weeks.

Arthur grinned, seeing Hyungmin’s puzzled expression.

“They all have hope now.”

“Hope for what?”

“That doing these weird exercises will lead to a win in the next game.”

Hyungmin looked like he wanted to strongly object to Arthur’s description of the training as ‘weird’.

Arthur, noticing Hyungmin’s expression of protest, chuckled and continued.

“And that following your instructions might salvage something from the game. So they might not get relegated [demoted to a lower league] this year.”

“Hoo…”

Hyungmin sighed, his chest suddenly feeling heavy.

“All three are a bit much to handle, aren’t they?”

Hyungmin awkwardly smiled back at Arthur’s grin.

“Huh? Something’s fishy here?”

“What is it?”

Hyungmin recoiled, wrinkling his nose as Arthur approached, sniffing at him.

Arthur gave him a sly smile.

“I smell something.”

“What smell are you talking about?!”

Hyungmin cautiously sniffed his own clothes, but the club’s laundry wasn’t that sloppy.

Puzzled by the fresh scent of his training gear, Hyungmin looked at Arthur questioningly.

“Hmm… a scent of positivity and hope?”

“No, what smell *does* positivity and hope have?!”

“It’s there. It’s definitely there. There’s definitely something.”

Hyungmin and Helena had already agreed to make the official announcement after the Aston Villa game.

Hyungmin started to deflect, inwardly sweating at the persistent old British man.

*If* he were to whisper a hint to Arthur?

There was no doubt that the news would be all over every pub in Burnley within an hour.

While the manager (interim, soon to be official) and the head coach (interim, soon to retire) were up to their antics, the players continued their training in the rare sunshine, seriously but with an overflowing positive energy, without needing instructions.

***

Founded in 1874, the historic club Aston Villa is based in Birmingham, the second-largest city in England after London.

Once a Premier League fixture, Aston Villa temporarily went through a dark period after being relegated to the Championship [the second tier of English football], in the 2015/16 season.

However, in 2017, Egyptian billionaire Nassef Sawiris and American billionaire Wes Edens jointly acquired the club.

Since then, the club has improved rapidly, investing heavily each year and succeeding in promotion to the Premier League in the 2019/20 season.

If there’s a similarity between Aston Villa and Burnley, it’s that their biggest rival, Birmingham City Football Club, remains in the Championship, allowing fans to automatically claim a mental victory and look at everything from that perspective.

Recently, Aston Villa fans have had even more reason to be joyful, as their local rival Birmingham City has been downsizing its youth academy and selling off prized young talents due to ongoing financial difficulties.

Most notably, the sale of 17-year-old Jude Bellingham, a talented midfielder who was called up to the England national team, to Dortmund for a bargain price of £25 million, caused Aston Villa fans, who had long been pained by losing local talents to their rivals, to celebrate.

Aston Villa also lost their youth academy ace, Jack Grealish, to Manchester City in this summer transfer window.

However, by receiving a transfer fee of £100 million, the highest in British professional football history, Aston Villa fans once again used this as a source of relative comfort and mental victory.

In addition, they spent £33 million to sign Emiliano Buendía, an Argentinian midfielder from Norwich who had shown outstanding skills in the Premier League two seasons ago and dominated the Championship last season.

They also spent £30 million to sign Danny Ings, an English striker from Southampton who, despite being unlucky with injuries at Liverpool, was considered too good for a mid-table team and guaranteed over 20 goals per season if healthy.

And they spent another £30 million to sign Leon Bailey, a Bundesliga [German Football League] top-tier winger from Bayer Leverkusen.

By investing a total of £93 million in three players who could easily perform well even if they joined the Big Six [the six most successful and dominant clubs in the Premier League], they were praised by critics for completing the most fruitful squad reinforcement in this transfer market.

The expected performance was at least 10th place.

In fact, if they were lucky, they could even aim for a spot in the European competition, which is usually given to teams finishing 6th or higher. That was the assessment of Aston Villa Football Club before the start of the 2021/22 season.

Helena, having crammed on information about Aston Villa to understand what she needed to know to sit in the director’s box during away games, could therefore fully understand the fury of Aston Villa’s owner, Nassef Sawiris, who was sitting next to her watching the first half.

The amount Cartwright Fund spent to acquire Burnley Football Club in its entirety was just pocket change: £20 million to acquire distressed debt, plus lawyer and other administrative fees.

With that, they swallowed up the first team, reserve team, youth team, the home stadium Turf Moor, and even the Banfield training ground, before sending an additional £10 million in support funds.

In the end, Cartwright Fund acquired an entire Premier League club for £30 million, an amount that would only allow them to sign either Danny Ings or Leon Bailey, and not even afford Emiliano Buendía.

While such business was happening next door, she would have been furious too if she had invested a whopping £93 million in just three players and was being unilaterally beaten by a team predicted to be relegated.

***

30 minutes before the game started.

Hyungmin entered the locker room for the final tactical check, and chuckled at the serious looks on the players’ faces.

“Uh, what’s with this atmosphere?”

“Manager, there’s a rumor going around that if we win today’s game, you’ll be appointed as the official manager?”

Captain Ben Mee stood up and asked, representing the players sitting in the locker room.

“Is that true?”

Hyungmin scratched the back of his head awkwardly and tilted his head.

“Well… that’s not the important thing. I think what’s important is how we’re going to face Aston Villa today, right?”

“We reviewed the tactics enough yesterday. Just answer the question!”

Vice-captain Jack Cork shouted from one corner, and the players echoed their agreement from all around.

Hyungmin turned to Arthur for help, but Arthur just smiled and replied.

“I want to know too?”

“Haa…”

Hyungmin sighed.

“If we win today’s game…”

Before Hyungmin could finish his sentence, the players cheered and exchanged high-fives.

“I knew it!”

“Alright!”

“Congratulations~!”

Watching the players already in a celebratory mood, Hyungmin shouted annoyedly.

“Damn it, we *have* to win today, you guys!”

“Yes, sir! Then let’s just win. Everyone, we’re winning today!”

At Captain Ben Mee’s shout, the players responded.

“Victory!”

Burnley and Aston Villa, who started the first half energetically and were about to exchange light probes, diverged at the crossroads of victory and defeat due to an accident that occurred before they could properly develop their planned attacks.

2 minutes into the first half.

“Dwight!”

Burnley, attacking on the left as usual, had left-back Charlie Taylor send the ball forward to left-winger Dwight McNeil.

“Chris!”

McNeil dribbled the ball down the sideline and sent a cross aimed at striker Chris Wood, who was surging into the center.

However, Aston Villa’s penalty box was guarded by Argentinian national team goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez.

In addition, there were Aston Villa’s center-backs Tyrone Mings and Ezri Konsa, full-backs Ashley Young and Matty Cash, and even attacking midfielder Emiliano Buendía, who had come down to defend for some reason.

A total of five Aston Villa players surrounded Chris Wood, the only Burnley player who had entered the penalty box.

In a normal situation, the defender would clear the ball first, or the goalkeeper would catch or punch the incoming ball.

Even McNeil, who made the cross, turned back to the Burnley side to join the defense, rather than expecting the attack to continue.

However, before Burnley’s center forward Chris Wood could jump for a header.

The ball, which had collided with Aston Villa’s Tyrone Mings’ head as he intervened between the opposing striker and the ball to cut it off in advance, was sucked into Aston Villa’s goal.

A clean header goal that would have been praised if it had been scored by an opposing player.

However, a moment of silence flowed through the stadium at the home team’s own goal in such an absurd situation.

While the bewildered players of both teams stared blankly at each other, the Burnley players, who were the first to realize the situation, raised their hands and shouted, anticipating victory.

“Uwaaaa!!!”

The game that followed saw Aston Villa, impatient, hastily launch attacks, only to be dispossessed by Burnley’s pressure, who had no need to rush, and then concede shots, falling deeper into the mire.

Even in the 24th minute of the first half, Dwight McNeil, who had broken through on the left in the same situation as the first goal, sent a cross into the penalty box, which was guarded by as many as six Aston Villa players this time (the same list as before, plus Aston Villa’s defensive midfielder John McGinn) along with the goalkeeper.

The problem was that Aston Villa’s defenders, remembering the own goal from earlier, were hesitant and did not aggressively jump in to cut off the ball.

While Chris Wood, who had concentrated the defense’s attention on himself in the center, was loitering around, Burnley’s right-winger Jay Rodriguez quietly surged towards the opposite goalpost where the cross was coming from, in a blind spot.

The ball, which had passed leisurely past Aston Villa’s defense, who had not even jumped to match the timing of the header with Chris Wood, changed its trajectory into the goal with Rodriguez’s header, who had only slightly touched his head to it at the opposite goalpost after passing the goal line.

The score changed to 0-2, along with the screams of the home fans.