We had now failed to win the league two seasons in a row and I knew that we had to focus all our energies on getting the title back. And of course on winning the Carabao Cup so we could chase down that Liverpool record. And of course the Champions Cup because I really loved that trophy. Oh, and first up we had the small matter of the Club World Championship to open our 2053/54 campaign. To this day I am still not sold with the Championship being staged during the off-season and disrupting our break, but nonetheless it's a cup and I of course wanted it. What's more, we were given yet another opportunity to show the world that England was in the hands of the North West with us facing Chelsea in the Quarters. It took a little longer than we wanted as once again we were involved in an incredibly boring match. However, I brought on Prevost at the end of the 90 minutes and he finally broke the deadlock for us with a beautiful long-range strike on the 94th minute to get us the win. Beautifully this meant that we progressed not just to the Semis, but to a game against Troy Deeney's Bayern Munich. Following the continual stream of trophies I had won since being at United he was no longer breathing down my neck in the rankings. However, he was still my only competition in the Hall of Fame with us the only two managers in the top 5 of all time who weren't retired: Him fifth and me third with Sir Alex Ferguson in-between in a United threesome. Pep, of course, was still smugly on top.
It was a big and symbolic game and he won it. The rivalry was reignited and my summer blues were increased yet further.
Fortunately, we had two fantastic opportunities at the start of the season to get things back on track: The Community Shield against Burnley, and the Euro. Super Cup against... Burnley. Once again they had spent a fortune, whilst we hadn't spent a penny in the summer with a lot of funds instead improving our training and youth facilities. Also, we had spent a load the previous season and I was very happy with the side. But yes, Burnley. They had spent yet another two hundred million in the summer and had now spent well over half a billion in four years and they genuinely had a quality squad which was a true rival to our own. Furthermore, Dwight Gayle had proved himself to be an incredibly canny operator. He had only spent two years in the England post and yet he achieved the same as me in almost six years in the job: A World Cup win. Following the cup, he resigned to return to club management and ended up in Germany, like myself and Troy. He was at a 'best of the rest' side as opposed to a genuinely competitive side like us, however he still achieved a Euro Cup win with Borussia M'gladbach before, like me, returning to England. He was easily the third best English manager of the age. Despite their millions and their manager, they weren't a match for us in the Community Shield and we brushed them aside 1-0 at Wembley thanks to a lovely counter attacking move finished off by my Brazilian Falcao. Due to their millions and their manager they were a match for us in Norway at the Lerkendal stadium with them brushing us aside 1-0 thanks to a lovely counter attacking move finished off by the World Cup winning Englishman Kyle Morrison.
Clearly it was going to be an incredibly tight title race and I was pumped for the prospect of such a close fight in the year ahead.
Whilst it was indeed tight between us, the rest of the league had seemingly fallen far below our standards. Indeed, it took until the tenth game for a team to even score against us with us having won all nine and having scored twenty-four goals already. It took a further four more games for us to drop any points with Leeds annoyingly holding us to a 0-0 draw despite them having two players sent off! To this day I still don't know how we failed to win and their cunning Chris Milton, yet another fellow England manager, managed to get a point that day. Regardless, we went into December flying high and overflowing with joyous confidence.
Predictably, ever so predictably, that's where we came crashing down in a disastrous three games where our pride was not just punctured, but pummelled to oblivion mercilessly by the three defining rivals of my recent management. On the 3rd we lost 1-0 at Stamford Bridge. On the 13th we lost 2-1 at The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. On the 26th we lost 1-0 at Turf Moor. We won our other games that month, but these nine points were devastating and we went into 2054 second in the league with Gayle's men sitting smugly atop the pack.
I was not happy. Indeed, I was so unhappy that I did something I historically never did in January: I hit the transfer market. We were clearly dominating the easier games and our attacking prowess was never in doubt. However, much like a Wenger side, it seemed that we lacked some disciplined steel to sit in the midfield and be our general. There wasn't anyone of that description in the Brazil networks that I could see and my club scouts were also failing me. It appeared that they had been focussed on the technically gifted players with great flair and vision that had come to define my management and had neglected to look at any other style players in their scouting. I admittedly couldn't blame them as this was indeed an area I had routinely overlooked. However, no longer. Ideally I would just bulldoze my way into Burnley's crumbling Turf Moor and steal their midfield general. Unfortunately, Alex Salifu had only recently signed for them from Arsenal in a gigantic ninety million deal and had no reason to join me. I had never worked with him at Arsenal nor England and they were paying him an eye watering three hundred and ninety grand a week. We had to look elsewhere.
I briefly looked at Chelsea and Tottenham's squads but they both had people north of thirty in their enforcer role and they were far more in the Arteta at Arsenal mould of being tactically astute than physically imposing. Stealing from these sides would have been an easy and perfect fix, but it obviously wasn't our only option. I looked at the top leagues around the world and went through their best elevens of the last few years and the season stats and finally I found my man: Francisco Moyano at Vigo. He had only signed for them two seasons before in a lowly seven and a quarter million deal from Wolfsburg, however he had since established himself as Spain's number one enforcer. He was twenty-five, just over six foot and had green stats in every single area I was looking for with his physicality, concentration and tackling. Due to how cheaply they had signed him recently and the fact they were only sitting in the upper mid-table positions of their league, I was sure that we could negotiate hard and get him for a good price. Unfortunately, though, we were by now just twenty-four hours before the window closed and so we just clenched our cheeks and paid the release clause and snapped him up for seventy-eight million to ensure the deal got done. It was a huge amount of money considering I hadn't spent any in the summer because we didn't have it, but due to my great relationship with the board and my tight control of the budget since I had joined, I was given the extra cash and we now had two clear systems: The attacking asymmetric 442 for the easier games, and a disciplined 41221 for the tougher games.
On the 1st March we got our first big match test with the Carabao Cup Final against Arsenal. We needed to win this in order to equal Liverpool's record of four wins in a row and to continue our progress to complete domination. It was a boring and disciplined game, but we won it 1-0 and I felt confident that we could now beat our rivals thanks to the added almighty steel at our heart.
However, whilst we now had the two clear systems, it was still my job to choose in which games we needed which system and unfortunately in the very next game I have to hold my hands up and say I made a mistake. It was a FA Cup 5th round tie against Leicester and I decided that we should be disciplined and cut back on our flair to ensure the win. It was entirely the wrong decision however as Leicester had done the same and the game whimpered out to a pathetic 0-0 draw. I had tried to change it up at the interval by bringing on a second striker, but it seemed that we just couldn't inject the flair and it went to penalties. Celenza was no longer around to be our first kicker and so I gave Prevost that crucial role. He missed his kick and we lost the shoot-out and were out of the FA Cup. That, however, was my last big mistake of the season.
We got two beautifully poetic draws in the Champions Cup with us first getting the opportunity to beat Burnley in the 1st Knockout Round before then facing Troy's Bayern in the Quarters. My great rival had already announced that he was going to retire from management at the end of the season and so this was his last ever chance to get one over me. He didn't and we won 2-0 on aggregate. It's a shame to say it, but I feel it was the right time for him to retire as at sixty-six the fire seemed to have gone out of his belly. The man had lost his legendary cojones and he was now just a little bit saggy. Perhaps this was because he knew he was never going to be able to chase me down in the rankings? We will never know. But what we do know, is that we continued on to the Semis against Napoli whilst he headed back home defeated.
Whilst we were in fantastic form, Burnley's defeat in the Champions Cup seemed to signal the end of their season with them winning just three of their remaining eleven league games and they threw away the title and didn't win a single thing in 2054. Maybe like with Troy age was getting to him and he too was about to retire beneath me? Time would tell.
My Manchester United, meanwhile, got yet another treble as we added the Champions Cup to our league and Carabao Cup wins with a 2-1 win at the London Stadium against AC Milan in the final. I was thrilled as it wasn't just a great season, but a fantastically positive way to start my hugely important summer with Brazil...