Three days after the friendly match against Rochdale, on July 24, New Manchester United arrived in Stockport, southeast of Manchester, to take on First Division side Stockport County.
New Manchester United made quite a few changes to their starting lineup for this match.
Žigić partnered Crouch up front. Krzynówek and Darren Lyons played as the left and right wingers. Juninho and Karl Marginson started in central midfield, with the latter playing in a deeper role. The defensive line continued with the same setup used in the previous match against Rochdale, from left to right, Evra, Abidal, Gary Turner, and Stenson. Almunia started in goal.
Even though this lineup seemed star-studded from Ethan's future perspective, what was it like in reality?
At Edgeley Park, New Manchester United conceded three goals to Stockport County across the two halves, only managing to score a consolation goal in the second half through Žigić, assisted by Lyons.
In this defeat, New Manchester United exposed even more problems than in the previous match against Rochdale. It was not just the defensive issue on the left flank, but also central organization and midfield ball-winning. These would all become major headaches for New Manchester United this season.
Meanwhile, New Manchester United's big-money signing, Juninho, remained as lacklustre as ever.
Although New Manchester United had gone to great lengths to help him solve his dietary issues, and Bruce kept giving him guidance on the training ground to help him improve, Juninho's training attitude was absolutely commendable. He remained as diligent as ever on the pitch, but his performance was still as poor as before.
However, the outside media had recently been distracted by the dispute between Manchester United and the FA, so even the local Manchester newspapers did not report much on New Manchester United. As a result, Juninho, the record signing, did not receive too much harsh criticism. Otherwise, given the style of the English media, who knew how they would have torn him apart?
After returning from Stockport, the team travelled to Wigan on July 26 to challenge Second Division side Wigan Athletic away.
After being tested in several consecutive friendly matches, the understanding between New Manchester United's starting players began to look increasingly natural.
First, in the 35th minute of the first half, Žigić headed in a cross from Krzynówek to score. Then, in the 4th minute of the second half, Krzynówek fired a long-range shot from outside the penalty area to pierce Wigan's goal.
Wigan did not show any weakness, tenaciously pulling one back through a well-worked move in the 24th minute of the second half, briefly seeing hope of equalising. But Olić, who came on as a substitute for Crouch, used his pace on the counter-attack to create a one-on-one, dribbled past the goalkeeper, and pushed the ball into the empty net.
The 3-1 scoreline brought New Manchester United a satisfying victory. After the loss to Stockport County in the previous match, the players had suffered under Bruce's torment, so finally getting a win was a relief.
With the team winning, Ethan was in a good mood, because in his impression, Wigan were not a weak team. They were promoted to the First Division in 2004 and started playing in the Premier League in 2005, and Steve Bruce had even coached this team with good results.
Having won this match against Wigan, New Manchester United's training intensity began to ease. On July 31, New Manchester United hosted the visiting Second Division powerhouse Preston at home. Both sides played very tenaciously in this match, and fortunately, Poulsen, who started in place of Juninho, performed excellently. His double-pivot partnership with Karl Marginson gave New Manchester United's defence plenty of protection, and Distin, who started in place of Gary Turner, also put in a commendable performance.
However, although the defence was excellent, Preston were no pushover either. In this 1-1 draw, New Manchester United took the lead through a goal from Crouch, but not long after, Preston also equalised from a corner.
After that, both sides had several opportunities, but neither could convert them into goals.
Although it was only 1-1, this was definitely the toughest and most hard-fought match New Manchester United had played. The intense physical collisions, the fast-paced attacking and defending, and the fierce tackling from the Preston players gave New Manchester United a real lesson.
Although the match was very intense, fortunately, there were no injuries, which allowed New Manchester United to welcome the first round of the National League on August 7 with a full squad.
Since it was the National League, the FA did not need to consider whether other teams had the ability to host matches against New Manchester United as they had last year in the North West Counties League Division Two. So for the first round of the new season, New Manchester United would host National League powerhouse Rushden & Diamonds, whom the media considered the most likely team to win promotion, at Gigg Lane.
This was a team from Rushden, near Birmingham, which had finished fourth in the National League for the past two seasons and participated in the play-offs, but ultimately failed to secure promotion.
This year, Rushden & Diamonds had brought in quite a few high-level players, with the goal of pushing into the Football League in one go.
Facing such an ambitious team, everyone at New Manchester United took it very seriously.
In fact, after the fixture list was released, the scouts had already started detailed tracking and investigation of all opponents in the National League. The match tapes of these teams alone almost filled Bruce's office, and Cassel was busy watching tapes and studying opponents with Bruce every day.
While Bruce was focusing on Rushden & Diamonds, Ethan had made good progress off the pitch.
First was Peter Schmeichel. The 36-year-old goalkeeper had politely declined Sporting Lisbon's invitation and accepted New Manchester United's offer, where he would serve as a goalkeeper and goalkeeping coach, just like when Bruce served as a centre-back and manager. This was also a transitional period.
However, based on Ethan's familiarity with Schmeichel from his past life, seeing him train in person, and the evaluations from Bruce and Cassel, he believed it would probably be a few years before Schmeichel retired, as his current form was still quite good.
Schmeichel's arrival turned Almunia from a starter in friendly matches into a substitute in the league. After all, the former's reputation was enormous, but Almunia readily accepted this arrangement because he believed he could learn a lot from Schmeichel.
Of course, Almunia's chances to play this season would definitely not be few. Although it was England's fifth tier, 22 teams had to play 42 matches, and there were other cup matches as well, so the total number of games was not small.
However, Schmeichel himself had said that at his age, he could only adapt to one match a week at most, so the rest would be Almunia's opportunities. Whether he could seize them would depend on how much he could learn from Schmeichel.
Finalising Schmeichel's transfer made New Manchester United famous overnight. This team, founded by die-hard Manchester United fans, had already become a small hit in the UK and even European football last year, but no one expected that they would poach a player from Manchester United this summer, which quickly became an interesting story in European football circles.
The local Manchester newspapers also paid considerable attention to New Manchester United, and some local Manchester television stations even expressed interest in considering recording or even broadcasting New Manchester United's home matches during empty time slots.
Of course, this would require paying broadcasting fees to New Manchester United, but for the time being, they were still in the planning stage.
Unlike those television stations still in the planning stage, the long-running story of Ethan acquiring the City of Manchester Stadium could finally come to an end. The city government held multiple council meetings to negotiate, and finally reached a result. New Manchester United's acquisition was approved, but the purchase amount had to be paid off within five years, and the club had to submit a complete plan for the planning and construction of the stadium and the surrounding land.
For such requirements, Ethan did not even frown, because he had already deeply engraved the relevant plans in his mind.
The only difference was that Ethan did intend to rebuild, but not so soon. He planned to wait until the team was promoted to the Premier League before deciding to rebuild, so it would take at least another five years.
After taking over the City of Manchester Stadium, Ethan would renovate the stadium, refurbish the stands, and build a tier on the North Stand, which would increase the capacity of the City of Manchester Stadium to more than 10,000.
However, the name "City of Manchester Stadium" was indeed not great, and Ethan also added in the plan that he would consider changing the stadium's name to something closer to New Manchester United, just like Newton Heath Training Base.
After organizing the plan, Ethan, Walsh, and Bruce went to the city government to hold a meeting, and then finalized the acquisition on the spot. Ethan also paid a down payment of 2 million pounds on the spot, with the remaining 6 million to be paid in instalments over the next four years.
However, after the renovation and expansion of the City of Manchester Stadium, the city government and the FA would also conduct safety assessments on the stadium. Only after passing the assessment could New Manchester United put the stadium into use.
By a conservative estimate, it would be at least Christmas before they could move into this home stadium that belonged entirely to them.
It was precisely because of this that Ethan modified the lease contract previously signed with Bury FC, extending the original one-month lease to half a year, and paid Bury FC a one-time rent of 50,000 pounds.
After finishing these matters, the dispute between the Premier League clubs led by Manchester United and the FA was finally resolved after multi-party negotiations, producing a somewhat satisfactory outcome.
When Ethan received this news, besides feeling happy from the bottom of his heart, he was also worried. This should be considered the biggest move he had made to change known history, but he just did not know whether the history that followed would continue to develop as he knew it!
(To be continued.)