Besides Niang, there were many things that Nyon and Martin O'Neill needed to discuss.

The team's forward line had performed reasonably well this season, but there were hidden crises behind the scenes.

Starting with Suarez's injury and Chen Yingxiong's six-game suspension. These two were the mainstays of Liverpool's forward line, and everyone had seen how badly Liverpool performed when they were both absent. Bellamy had now become a jack-of-all-trades, while Kuyt was a winger whose goal-scoring ability wasn't great. If both Suarez and Chen Yingxiong had problems, relying on Bellamy and Kuyt wouldn't work.

Moreover, both of these players had tempers and could have a momentary lapse of reason on the field, resulting in red cards.

It was necessary to take precautions.

Therefore, the forward line needed to be supplemented with players. Martin O'Neill agreed with this, believing that Suarez and Chen Yingxiong were the only real strikers. For a top team, such a risk configuration was too weak to cope with multiple competitions. This season, Liverpool had a chance to participate in the Europa League.

The main area for reinforcements was still midfield, but on the wings.

Last season, because Niang and Dalglish were at odds, the team only brought in Adam Johnson.

Overall, the wings were still relatively weak.

"We should make full use of Hero's heading advantage, so when we introduce wingers, we should focus on players who can deliver beautiful high balls..." Martin O'Neill was interrupted by Niang before he could finish.

"I'm afraid we should consider high balls as little as possible, Martin." Then Niang explained the reason to O'Neill.

After listening, O'Neill was stunned for a long time before shaking his head and sighing, "What a pity..."

Niang smiled: "From my observation of Hero, I don't think he will necessarily feel sorry. For him, this is just another challenge. He is someone who likes to constantly challenge himself."

O'Neill also understood why Chen Yingxiong suddenly stopped using his head to compete for the ball near the end of last season.

Out of consideration for his health and respect for the player, Martin O'Neill didn't object to Chen Yingxiong using his head as little as possible, so his previously considered tactic of having both wings take flight and fully utilize Chen Yingxiong's heading advantage had to be abandoned.

But it didn't matter, as an excellent coach, he didn't only have one tactic to use. Martin O'Neill wasn't the kind of coach who particularly relied on aerial tactics anyway; he was also good at ground attacks.

For example, when he was at Aston Villa, Ashley Young was a very good winger, but Ashley Young didn't frequently cross the ball on the wing; he chose to cut inside more often.

Martin O'Neill's tactics didn't seem to have any particularly prominent style. If you said he liked to play ground-based football, there were still some shadows of traditional English football. If you said he was traditional English, his teams still paid more attention to footwork.

But no matter what specific tactics were used, O'Neill's teams would always have an impactful center forward at the front.

In this sense, he had come to the right place with Liverpool, because there was already a center forward here who was as strong as could be.

Although Chen Yingxiong had been asked to use headers as little as possible, this wouldn't hinder O'Neill's plan to reuse him.

He had observed that even without using his head, Chen Yingxiong was still a very good scorer.

So Liverpool's midfield still needed wingers.

Currently, Adam Johnson was the only true midfielder who was a winger. Last season, Dalglish often used Bellamy as an attacking midfielder.

But this wasn't a long-term solution.

Moreover, Bellamy was already thirty-three years old, and no one knew how much longer he could play. For a player who relied on speed, age was his greatest enemy.

Bellamy's contract would expire at the end of this season, and Niang didn't plan to renew it, so he needed to prepare in advance.

Adam Johnson was a left-footed player, but he could play on both the left and right sides.

This showed the correctness of Niang's decision to buy Adam Johnson in the first place. In this way, Liverpool had more options for wingers and weren't limited to just one side.

In the defense, Glen Johnson and Enrique were both full-backs with strong attacking abilities, but their defending wasn't great. However, it was difficult to find good defending full-backs anywhere in the world now. Everyone seemed to have fallen into a misunderstanding, that is, to evaluate whether a full-back was world-class, you first looked at whether he could score goals and whether he was good at assisting.

In this way, those full-backs who defended honestly naturally wouldn't get much attention. Looking at the global football scene, the famous ones were all those who could assist and score goals.

The problem was that Liverpool didn't need full-backs who could assist and score goals.

In terms of center backs, Skrtel, Agger, Carragher, and Coates were currently the four who were more reliable. Carragher was originally the team's main center back, but under Dalglish, he had been reduced to a substitute. After all, he was getting old, his physical fitness wasn't as good as before, and he couldn't keep up.

Niang didn't intend to go against Dalglish on this matter. He also intended to continue letting Carragher, whom Dalglish had put on the bench, remain on the bench.

Martin O'Neill also agreed with this.

As for the goalkeeper position, Reina was very good, and both Martin O'Neill and Niang felt that there was no need to change anything.

On the side of clearing out players, the main ones were some young and old players.

Maxi Rodriguez was not only old and weak but also prone to injury. Niang planned to sell him, and O'Neill had no objections.

Shelvey would continue to be loaned out to train, and Henderson would be loaned out first and then sold.

Brazilian left-back Fabio Aurelio was also to be sold due to frequent injuries and a significant decline in form. Although he could still be a substitute, Niang and Martin O'Neill didn't think it was necessary to keep a substitute who spent more time on the injury list than on the substitute list.

Most of the others were young players from Liverpool's youth academy. These players had different abilities; some had great potential, while others progressed slowly.

Martin O'Neill suggested treating them differently. For those players with limited room for development, if someone wanted to buy them, then sell them. For players like Shelvey with a promising future, it was the right approach to loan them out to gain experience and then bring them back to the first team to play.

※※※

After discussing everything, Niang looked at the list in his hand, which was full of circles and crosses, and shrugged: "So, we haven't cleared out that many people..."

"Do you like mass clear-outs that much?" O'Neill asked.

Niang shook his head: "No, I just think that not causing a bloodbath is really... um, not exciting enough."

"That's a good thing. No one wants the team to be too turbulent. We've only just changed the head coach, and if we cleared out a large number of players, I'm afraid the team would be uneasy, and the pre-season training would definitely not be effective."

Of course, Niang understood this simple logic. He nodded: "Okay, as long as the team can perform well, it doesn't matter whether we clear out players or not."

He thought of another matter: "Now let's talk about Hero, Martin."

"Hero?" O'Neill was surprised. What was there to talk about Chen Yingxiong? Liverpool couldn't possibly let him go, could they? Although many teams did want to get Chen Yingxiong this summer... but he felt that anyone with a normal IQ wouldn't want to let go of such a terrifying shooter.

"Um... it's like this, I still don't know your team-building policy and ideas, Martin. So I'm telling you in advance—no matter what tactics you use, you must ensure that Hero can score a lot of goals. Things like using him as a tactical center forward to set up others are not allowed."

Chen Yingxiong liked to score goals, and if you didn't let him score, he would definitely be unhappy. If the problem wasn't solved, Chen Yingxiong might really leave in the end. That was absolutely not allowed.

Niang was afraid that Martin O'Neill had his own plans, so he told him in advance to give him a heads-up and avoid some irreparable losses in the future.

You know, in today's football, it's become a popular trend to use tall and strong center forwards to set up teammates and create opportunities. There are many center forwards who don't score many goals themselves but are good at assisting.

But Chen Yingxiong didn't like assisting at all.

His assists were pitifully few. Last season, he scored thirty-seven goals but only had three assists. It was clear how little attention he paid to assisting.

All of Chen Yingxiong's interest was in how to score goals. He felt that scoring goals was more challenging than assisting and was also his duty as a center forward.

After hearing Niang's words, Martin O'Neill didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "You have to trust my professional competence, Mr. Lu?"

He didn't finish, but Niang had already understood the unspoken words—Chen Yingxiong is such a terrifying shooter who scores thirty-seven goals in a single season, would I be full enough to make him a pivot and set up other people?

But he still had to remind him, because if he didn't say it and something went wrong, he would be responsible. If he said it and something still went wrong, he could question O'Neill.

But he still had to give O'Neill face, so Niang sincerely and seriously apologized to O'Neill.

Seeing that the other party's attitude was so sincere, O'Neill couldn't get angry either. He just shook his head and continued: "Hero is definitely Liverpool's tactical core, and I think I will cooperate with him happily."

Niang thought to himself: After you've seen Chen Yingxiong's temper and personality, I hope you can still cooperate with him happily...

After finalizing the specific list of players to be cleared out and signed with O'Neill, Niang began to fly around the world to negotiate with teams.

The players were still on vacation at this time, but Niang had already started working.

But many people didn't know that their fate at Liverpool had been decided in this way.

※※※

Commercial Break—

Book Title: 精英文明 (Jingying Wenming)

Book Number: 2277980

This is a female-oriented novel on Qidian. Everyone can throw their free pink tickets at it!

2012 is coming? No, this is just the beginning

When the world is entirely composed of elites, will it become infinitely better?

Unique humans, what is the relationship between the body and the soul?

......

Maybe one day, we will find that every one of our cells, every small gene, is an unparalleled treasure, carrying countless information, recording—the biological code.