For Sir Alex Ferguson, mentioning Drinkwater in the media was really just a passing remark. What was truly important to him was Manchester United's plan for the new season.
For Ferguson, who had led the team for 23 years, last season they once again achieved the great feat of winning the Premier League three times in a row. This was Manchester United's second dynasty period, and it felt like all their Premier League opponents had returned to the era dominated by the Red Empire. Whether it was Abramovich's Chelsea, Wenger's Arsenal, or Benitez's Liverpool, they were all overwhelmed by Manchester United, and could only watch as United completed the great achievement of three consecutive titles yet again!
However, this season was quite a challenge for Manchester United. Losing Tevez this summer, and especially the departure of World Player of the Year Cristiano Ronaldo, severely weakened the Red Devils. After letting Tevez go, Manchester United placed their hopes on veteran Michael Owen. However, Owen was no longer the force he once was, and the shadow of injury often loomed over him. The question of whether Owen could maintain a stable high level of performance always remained. Even if he could play consistently, and with the aging Giggs and Scholes, whether Antonio Valencia could fill the gap left by Ronaldo was uncertain. Manchester United's strength was bound to decline.
Therefore, the media generally believed that this season would be quite a challenge for Manchester United.
However, Ferguson didn't think so. He believed his team's squad was still quite strong in the Premier League.
The strike partnership of Rooney and Berbatov was enough to threaten the defense of all Premier League teams; they had that capability. Even without Cristiano Ronaldo, Ferguson believed that Valencia, signed from Wigan, was sufficient to replace Ronaldo's position. To help the players and fans regain confidence, he even gave Valencia the number seven shirt.
Gao Bo, of course, knew about Valencia's later development. Valencia was an excellent winger, but honestly, thinking he could reach Cristiano Ronaldo's level was a bit too much. Moreover, the pressure of the number seven shirt was difficult for Valencia to bear, so he later voluntarily gave up the shirt. And the facts proved that after changing his shirt number, Valencia's performance did indeed return to normal.
However, the current Ferguson didn't know this. He still had high hopes for Valencia. And Ferguson also didn't want to lose this Community Shield match.
Now the English media were generally enjoying Manchester United's situation. Luton had successively defeated Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool, who were members of the Premier League's 'Big Four'. Now, among the Premier League's top four, only Manchester United hadn't faced Luton, so the media were quite looking forward to it.
"If Luton can achieve the feat of defeating Manchester United in the Community Shield, Coach Gao Bo might become the only coach to lead a former lower league team to consecutively defeat the Premier League's top four across two seasons."
Even Sky Sports started to make fun of it in the newspapers.
This was actually related to the nature of the Community Shield. The Community Shield, originally called the Charity Shield, is an annual competition organized by the Football Association, contested by the winners of the Premier League and the FA Cup. If a team wins the Double (both the Premier League and the FA Cup), the opponent is the Premier League runner-up. The match is held traditionally at Wembley Stadium as the curtain-raiser before the start of each season. For this kind of warm-up cup, the media didn't originally place much importance on the outcome. As the opening match of the season, it was more like a festival, because after this game, the Premier League matches would begin one after another.
However, this edition of the Community Shield was a bit special,
because the FA found it hard to imagine that a team from the English First Division would actually participate in this Community Shield match – usually, the Community Shield is a contest between Premier League teams. Therefore, regarding the schedule, Luton had to postpone their first league match because the first round of the First Division clashed with the Community Shield.
Luton didn't have much to say about this. As for how much importance Gao Bo placed on the Community Shield, it wasn't that much, really.
For Gao Bo, he treated this match as a high-quality warm-up game. Facing a team like Manchester United, he wanted to see how the team would perform after the off-season, how the new players were integrating, and especially since the team would definitely face some difficulties in this match, Gao Bo wanted to see the team's resilience.
However, before that, Gao Bo wanted to resolve Alex Sandro's work permit issue first. Gao Bo had already decided to invoke the 'special talent clause'!
At this time, the 'special talent clause' was actually quite lenient. Before England's disastrous performance in the 2014 Brazil World Cup, work permits were not strictly enforced.
So generally speaking, as long as a club used this clause, the FA would usually approve it. Gao Bo, who didn't know much about work permits, wasn't aware of this originally; it was John who reminded him.
"Do we need to find someone with enough influence to attend the hearing?" Gao Bo was still not entirely at ease.
"No need! You can do it!" John said confidently.
"Me?!"
"That's right. Think about it, who discovered Vardy? And Charlie, Kante, Adam!" John said. "This fully demonstrates that you are a coach with great vision! As long as you provide a letter of recommendation, the FA will approve it!"
Gao Bo thought about it, and it seemed to make sense.
Proving who is a genius is actually very subjective, so it requires someone with influence to speak up.
Gao Bo hadn't expected that he now had some standing in the football world.
Gao Bo prepared a letter of recommendation and then handed it over to the team's legal advisor, Morris, to handle the matter.
However, before the Community Shield match started, Alex Sandro's work permit hadn't been processed yet. The team had thought of everything, but the one thing they hadn't anticipated was the FA's work efficiency!
The team sent a letter to the FA in mid-July to apply for Alex Sandro's work permit.
The FA didn't reply until the end of July. This application was, of course, rejected. Then Luton appealed, using the 'special talent clause' in their defense.
But the FA hasn't replied to this appeal even now.
This made Gao Bo extremely dissatisfied with the English FA's work efficiency.
The process was taking way too long.
Even by August 8th, Alex Sandro's work permit application hadn't been approved, so he was destined not to play in this Community Shield match.
So Sandro had to watch from the stands as a spectator.
Speaking of which, the Luton players were quite familiar with Wembley. They had played there twice last season, and at the start of this season, they were back at Wembley again.
Most of the players weren't surprised by this, but new players like Griezmann were very interested in England's national stadium.
The weather on the match day was quite good. As the opening match of the new season, Wembley attracted many fans to watch.
Even the Luton fans didn't feel Wembley was that new anymore. They had been there twice last season, but this didn't mean
they had lost their enthusiasm.
At Wembley, there were still quite a few Luton fans.
In the Wembley dressing room, Gao Bo was giving the team his final motivational talk.
"This is the first match of the new season. This game will be a comprehensive test of what our training over the past month has achieved!" Gao Bo said.
"I'll reiterate, the match against Manchester United is a completely new game. Manchester United is an opponent we have never faced before. Even though we played Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool last season, that experience doesn't give us any advantage here! The only thing we can do is first solidify our defense, and then look for opportunities to counterattack!!"
After Gao Bo finished speaking, the players walked out of the dressing room.
The Community Shield was about to begin, and this brand new season was also about to start.