Became The Premier League’S Youngest Manager [EN]: Chapter 59

59: Reaching My Prime Again

So far, the tactics are working.

Hyeongmin watched the game, pacing up and down the sideline within the technical area.

Leeds’s powerful press and quick counter-attacks have clear drawbacks as much as they have advantages.

One of the drawbacks is the limited time they possess the ball.

If a quick counter-attack leads directly to a goal, it’s fine, but otherwise, it often results in quickly handing possession back to the opponent.

And today, Hyeongmin was targeting exactly this vulnerability.

With Burnley’s goalkeeper Nick Pope and the experienced defense firmly guarding the rear, they intercepted Leeds’s attacks and initiated their own attacks through midfielder Nico Gonzalez.

As the Burnley players maintained possession and exchanged passes in tight spaces, Leeds’s formation inevitably began to crumble.

When Leeds midfielder Mateusz Klich couldn’t stop Nico Gonzalez alone, Stuart Dallas, who started alongside him, attempted to press.

However, Burnley’s midfield, with Nicolas Seiwald, Josh Brownhill, and Nico Gonzalez constantly forming a triangle, retained possession despite the two-man press.

Eventually, even Leeds’s defensive midfielder Kalvin Phillips joined the press, but Burnley maintained numerical superiority by having another player, whether a defender or attacker, come closer to change the triangle into a square.

As Leeds players were drawn into the center one by one, the pressure on Burnley’s attackers gradually eased, and in the 20th minute of the first half…

Nico Gonzalez, who was orchestrating Burnley’s attack from the central midfield, suddenly shifted Burnley’s attacking tempo from a slow and relaxed *adagio* [a slow tempo marking in music] to a fast and flashy *allegro* [a fast tempo marking in music].

“Dwight!”

The same left hand as before, and the same shout.

While the Leeds players, who had already fallen for it several times, didn’t budge, the shepherd boy, having finally succeeded in summoning the wolf, swung his right foot and launched a pass diagonally across the entire field.

Dwight McNeil, Burnley’s left winger, who had diligently repeated his penetrating runs on the left throughout the first half, finally received a reward for his patience, not even knowing when the attack would unfold.

The ball arrived, gently settling on the grass in front of him as he ran, and Leeds’s right defender Luke Ayling and the central defensive duo of Diego Llorente and Pascal Struijk, who should have been blocking him, were all drawn to the midfield by Nico’s clever playmaking.

Dwight McNeil, facing Leeds’s young goalkeeper Illan Meslier in a wide-open space, couldn’t help but smile brightly.

It’s not easy to experience such an empty penalty box even in practice matches.

As he leisurely dribbled into the penalty box, goalkeeper Illan Meslier desperately rushed out to block him, but McNeil lightly sidestepped him by pushing the ball to his right with the outside of his right foot.

After surpassing the despairing goalkeeper, he turned his head while chasing after the ball that had slightly drifted to the side, glancing at the Leeds defenders desperately running from behind.

Since he had come this far, he leisurely dribbled the ball all the way into the goal and lightly tapped it in for the final confirmation.

“Uwaaa!!!”

Half of the Burnley players ran towards Dwight McNeil, who was spreading his arms wide and shouting towards the away fans.

The other half swarmed Nico Gonzalez, who was standing in the midfield, contentedly admiring the result of his pass.

“Hahaha! You little rascal, well done!”

Captain Ben Mee shouted, jumping on top of the promising player who was even taller than him.

As Nico Gonzalez smirked, the Burnley players raised their fists at the booing home fans and cheered.

But Leeds was not easy to deal with.

Having fought many fierce battles during December and January meant that they had accumulated a lot of experience and tenacity in breaking through those battles.

Moreover, the fact that the manager wouldn’t make any tactical changes gave the players even more confidence.

Whether it rained or snowed.

Whether they were winning or losing.

Coach Bielsa’s tactics were consistent.

And so, the Leeds players finally succeeded in scoring a goal through repeated counter-attacks.

“Goal! Leeds equalizes! Number 20 for the Whites, Daniel~ James~!!!”

“Uwaaa!!!”

The announcer’s shout was answered by the crowd.

Leeds’s counter-attack pattern is clear.

The moment they win back the ball through their relentless pressing, the players surge forward, executing well-rehearsed attacking plays.

This time, the Burnley central striker Jay Rodriguez was a fraction of a second late in returning the ball to Nico Gonzalez.

In fact, it was hard to call it a mistake, as the Leeds players’ pressure was relentless.

Leeds’s central defender Pascal Struijk, who won the ball, immediately connected a pass to central midfielder Mateusz Klich.

And Mateusz Klich passed to winger Daniel James, who was already sprinting forward.

The young Welsh attacker, who had arrived at Leeds after spells at Swansea and Manchester United, used his quick feet to slice through Burnley’s defense and shot with unstoppable momentum.

Burnley’s goalkeeper Nick Pope tried to stretch out his arm, but it wasn’t enough to stop the right-footed shot that gently curved to the left.

As Hyeongmin clicked his tongue in disappointment, Arthur approached him.

“What are you going to do?”

“What do you mean? We have to keep going as is.”

“Will it be okay?”

Arthur asked, watching the Leeds players celebrating with the crowd and the Burnley players shaking their heads in disappointment.

“It’ll be fine. And this time, we scored the first goal, right? We’ll try to increase it little by little like this.”

Arthur looked at Hyeongmin with an intrigued expression.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You seem to have gained some composure?”

“Me?”

*Of course, he still smells like a rookie.*

Arthur smiled and turned around.

“Hey, Arthur! If you’re going to say something, you have to explain it!”

“I didn’t say anything?”

“I definitely heard you? Arthur?! Aish!”

Finally, the last game of January came to an end.

Burnley had a successful January, achieving 3 wins and 2 draws, including 2 wins and 2 draws in the Premier League alone, earning a total of 8 points.

Combined with the 36 points accumulated during the first 20 games of the first half [first half of the season], the total was 44 points.

Barring any catastrophic events, Burnley’s stay in the Premier League was virtually confirmed, and a sense of relief and exhaustion coexisted at the Barnfield Training Centre.

And that included Helena, who had flown from New York to Burnley without 24 hours’ notice and had been working desperately to normalize the club for months without a single day of proper rest.

All the general staff were on holiday, and the coaching staff and players had disappeared after the morning recovery training, leaving the club offices quiet.

Helena, who had collapsed on the office sofa—100 times more comfortable than a hotel room—and had been sound asleep since morning, finally opened the office door, scratching her disheveled hair as she walked out.

It was around the time when the short winter sun of northwest England was already setting.

There was no need to check whose office was the only one with lights on besides hers.

“What’s up? Working overtime again today? You know, you don’t get paid for that.”

“Well… I don’t think Premier League managers sign contracts based on a 5-day work week, do they?”

Helena chuckled at Hyeongmin’s quick-witted response, which came out despite his obvious weariness.

“Not a bad answer. Except for the fact that I was the one who wrote the contract.”

“Is that so?”

At Hyeongmin’s gesture to come in, Helena entered Hyeongmin’s office.

“Were you working on something?”

“Ah, it’s nothing important. I was just rewatching the last Leeds game.”

“Doing a post-match analysis, then?”

“It’s not that grand. I was just thinking about how the game went, and what I could have done differently with other options.”

Helena sat on the sofa opposite Hyeongmin and smiled again.

“Usually, that’s what you call a post-match analysis.”

“Oh, is that so? I thought it was something more… involved.”

While Hyeongmin turned off the TV that was showing the game, Helena looked around the office and asked.

“Hyeongmin, I’m curious about something.”

“…?”

“Do you happen to have any food? I skipped both breakfast and lunch because I was sleeping…”

“…”

In the end, Helena, who had spread out food delivered from an unidentified Asian fusion restaurant on the table in Hyeongmin’s office, began to devour it with a satisfied expression.

“Hyeongmin, try this too. This place makes good fried rice.”

“Oh… um…”

“The noodles are a bit soggy; I wonder if it’s because it took a while to deliver? I’ll have to go there in person next time to find out.”

Watching Helena’s chopsticks and spoon moving non-stop, Hyeongmin looked slightly pale.

“Um… do you always eat that much?”

“Huh…?”

Helena, who had briefly stopped moving her hands, tilted her head and looked at Hyeongmin.

“Isn’t this the basic amount everyone eats?”

*No wonder the people working in the cafeteria looked unhappy whenever Helena showed up.*

Hyeongmin, who was looking at the club’s CEO with a slightly stunned expression as she easily devoured about twice the amount of food as a typical adult player, finally couldn’t resist his curiosity and asked.

“Where does all that energy go?”

“Energy?”

“Do you have a high metabolism? Or do you do some other kind of exercise?”

“I don’t have anything like that. I don’t really like exercising. I’ve always eaten this much since I was young. Oh, I used to eat a bit more in high school. But I guess I’m getting older, so the amount is decreasing little by little.”

*There are people like this, I’ve heard of them.*

*People who don’t gain weight no matter how much they eat.*

Hyeongmin, who had been forcibly managing or managed his diet as an athlete and coach his entire life, looked at Helena with chills running down his spine.

Just by roughly calculating, she just ate about 3,000 calories. Then, to maintain that figure, her metabolism must be at the level of someone living in the Arctic [Eskimo is outdated and can be offensive]…

“…Hyeongmin!”

Hyeongmin snapped out of it at the sound of his name.

“Ah, yes. I’m sorry. I was just thinking about something for a moment…”

“Um… I don’t know what you were thinking, but your expression was incredibly…”

“Incredibly?”

“Dazed? Blank? Anyway, you seemed like you weren’t here for a moment.”

Hyeongmin shook his head again to clear his mind.

Helena looked at Hyeongmin with a slightly worried expression.

“Are you staying here because of me even though you’re too tired right now? I can eat and clean up, so you can go home first if you’re tired.”

*She clearly ordered three servings to eat together, but she’s going to eat it all by herself?!*

Hyeongmin shook his head again, feeling like he was hallucinating that she wanted to eat it all by herself.

“No, it’s okay. I guess I was just a little tired from sitting for too long. I have to eat dinner anyway.”