Rebirth of India: Superior

Although Egyptian businessman Fayed bought Fulham in 1997, Fulham was only a second-tier club at that time. Fayed lived in London all year round, and his Harrods department store was already accepted by the British, so his acquisition of Fulham did not cause any shock.

But Shakur was different. The British did not know him at all, and the arrogant and xenophobic British did not believe that an Indian from a football desert could lead a Premier League team. The only company that had confidence in Shakur was William Company in the UK, because they knew Shakur's predictive ability in this regard too well. So after learning that Coventry City had changed hands with him, they immediately reduced the odds of Coventry City's relegation next season by three percentage points.

Shakur didn't take these disturbances from the outside world to heart. At this moment, he was talking to the team's head coach Gordon Strachan. Speaking of this head coach who won the title of England's Best Young Coach of the Year, his head coach experience was quite interesting. He had been the team's assistant coach until November 1996, when Ron Atkinson (this guy had to bear more than half of the responsibility for Coventry's financial crisis. He spent 50 million pounds when he was in office, but he didn't achieve much) was fired. He temporarily served as the head coach, but he defeated Tottenham Hotspur in the last round and successfully avoided relegation.

In the season that just ended, he led the team to successfully win the relegation battle, so now his prestige in the team is very high, and he is a very good tinker, very good at using the existing cards in his hand to win, but very few successful records in transfers, which is exactly complementary to Shakur's expertise, so Shakur's first step is to keep him.

Originally, Shakru thought it would be a very troublesome thing to keep him, but unexpectedly, just by increasing his salary and confirming that the next head coach position would still be his, Strachan agreed to stay in Coventry.

Later, Shakru learned that it was not that Strachan did not want to leave, but that no team wanted him, or more precisely, no other Premier League team wanted him, because although he won the England's best young coach of the year, his qualifications were too shallow, and he only had relegation experience, so no Premier League team extended an olive branch to him.

There were several teams in the English League One that were interested in him, but he did not want to go. The Premier League coach and the English League One coach were completely different levels. Another reason was that Strachan felt that although the club had a new owner, the main lineup had hardly changed, so there should be no problem with relegation this season, after all, the task given by the new owner was relegation.

When a new owner takes over a team, the most common way to please the fans of the home team is to buy strong players, increase the strength of the team and give fans hope that the team's performance will improve this season. After the new owner Shakur took office, although he also bought several players, his moves made many people feel puzzled, and even felt that he was too stingy, because none of the players he bought were big-name players, but young players and abandoned players from other teams.

Shakur first needs to strengthen the team's offensive power. Although the veteran Gary McAllister in the team is playing quite stably, he is after all a veteran over 35 years old. His physical strength cannot be maintained for a season, and his technical characteristics are too single. Shakur needs a strong striker with comprehensive skills. In fact, Vieri is the one that best meets Shakur's expectations, but the problem is that he can't afford it, so he has to settle for the second best and set his sights on Australian striker Mark Viduka, who is currently not doing well in the Scottish Premier League giants Celtic.

The Australian striker has a very comprehensive quality. With a height of 1.88 meters, he can not only use his body and height to score points, but also has a strong advantage in the air. What's more valuable is that his footwork is not bad, and he has a strong ability to protect the ball and create opportunities for his teammates. In the three years before, he scored more than 50 goals in the league in the Croatian powerhouse Zagreb (now Dinamo Zagreb), helping Dinamo Zagreb win the domestic league championship and cup championship three times, and also performed well in the European war.

However, since the introduction of Viduka was the personal idea of ​​Croatian President Tudjman, the head coach was not consulted. Once Viduka was in poor condition, the fans would grab his relatives' braids and sometimes he even became a target of political struggle. At that time, life in Croatia, which had not yet completely emerged from the shadow of war, also made Viduka often worried. The fans' attacks and psychological pressure made it difficult for Viduka to go out for dinner. Even after he transferred to the Scottish Premier League giants Celtic, he was troubled by psychological problems for a while and left the club without playing a game.

With such a psychological state and the presence of Sweden's top scorer Henrik Larsson in the team, it is easy to imagine how Viduka spent his days in Celtic. But in fact, after Larsson was seriously injured and broke his leg in the new season, Viduka was forced to take on the offensive burden of the team. He recovered and scored 27 league goals in a season, becoming the top scorer in the Scottish Premier League.

Therefore, Shakur felt that this was the best opportunity to buy Viduka. Celtic didn't value him, he didn't have a chance to play, and he himself was not happy in the team. Although Coventry was not as famous as Celtic, it was a Premier League team after all, and it was at least a level higher than the Scottish Premier League. So in the end, Shakur easily bought him with a transfer fee of 2.8 million pounds. You know, Celtic spent 6 million pounds to take him away from Croatia.

After solving the problem of strikers, the next step is midfield. In this position, Shakur needs a commander role. This time his choice is more bold. He directly offered to the famous Barcelona to buy Mikel Arteta, a young player who had just entered the Barcelona B team.

Speaking of Arteta, this player is very interesting. He is a product of Barcelona's youth training camp, but his style of play is not suitable for La Liga at all. On the contrary, he is like a fish in water in the rough Premier League. This can be seen from his performance in the Spanish Real Sociedad and Everton.

ps: Please rest assured that this is not a football competition article, so there will be very few plots about football matches and transfers.

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