As for Ray Kennedy taking three of his forr players with him to Barnet, while another three forr Swansea players moved together to Blackpool, Lynn chose to deal with it coldly.
On this matter, no matter what those departed players said, Lynn would not care.
On the contrary, the more malicious words they spoke, the more disgusted the supporters would beco, and the more it would stir up their instinct to defend the club.
Because those players had already left.
The supporters backed Swansea City, not any individual player.
The club's interests ca first.
If an outsider slandered or cursed the club, it would only make the fans extrely resentful.
Cath Carter and Walter Raleigh both wanted to get so reaction from Lynn, but Lynn told them he did not care what others said.
Over the past two months, he had heard too much mockery, sarcasm, slander, and defamation already.
Mo Yuan had purchased the training instrunts and equipnt Kerry McConner needed, and had also ordered a batch of football gear in different specifications from Nike.
Of the forty-five million pounds Lynn had borrowed from the British Investnt Group, thirty-five million had been paid to the property magnate Green.
The remaining ten million would be invested into the club's operations.
In addition, Lin Investnt Company had given Swansea City another ten million pounds under the pretext of buying the club's shirt sponsorship and stadium sponsorship.
That left Lynn with a budget of twenty million pounds.
Of that, five million would be used to add hardware, facilities, and player equipnt to the club.
The remaining fifteen million would cover staffing costs and transfer fees.
If it was not enough, Lynn would pay more out of his own pocket.
The club's competitive revenue, plus non-league matchday inco from the stadium, was estimated to reach around one million pounds.
It was very little — probably only enough to cover one year's wages for the staff of the training and rehabilitation centre.
The wages of the coaching staff, scouts, and other administrative personnel would be around 1.5 million pounds a year.
Lynn hoped this portion of expenditure could be earned back through broadcasting revenue and prize money.
The biggest remaining costs would be player wages and the maintenance of the club's basic facilities.
He did not yet know how large that part of the budget would be, but it would certainly be higher than the other two items combined.
...
On the afternoon of June 20, after finishing training, Lynn returned to his office.
He locked the office door, then opened the card system.
He had not yet used any cards on the players.
He planned to wait until the club's sumr recruitnt was finished before considering how to use them.
First, as usual, he opened the coaching interface, took out the experience cards accumulated by the reserve-team and youth-team coaches, and used them on the first-team coaches.
The reason he personally led training instead of acting mostly as a supervisor like many managers at big clubs was precisely because he also needed to accumulate experience cards himself.
The more, the better.
That would help improve the ability of the first-team coaching staff.
After evenly distributing the coaching cards, he opened the scouting system.
The European region on the world map was already densely covered in points of light, representing Swansea's scouting network beginning to penetrate different parts of Europe.
The densest area was England.
Lynn opened the player list.
A large number of nas appeared, along with basic player profiles.
But as Lynn began selecting through them, his brows furrowed more and more deeply.
He realized that he had made a mistake.
A mistake in direction.
He should not have asked the scouts to cover England first.
Because in English football, it would be very difficult for Swansea to sign players.
First of all, England already had a mature training system.
Players entered the academies of nearby clubs from a very young age.
In terms of youth developnt reputation, Swansea were at the bottom.
In terms of club reputation, Swansea were at the bottom.
In terms of their position within the league pyramid, Swansea were still at the bottom.
Worse still, because of all Lynn's so-called "reckless actions" at Swansea, his own reputation had already spread in a bad way.
BBC Wales and the South Wales Argus had only helped Lynn rehabilitate his image in Swansea and South Wales itself.
That was mainly to reduce the hostility of the local fanbase toward Swansea City.
But what about England to the east?
When Fleet Street reported the mass supporter protest at the beginning of the month, what kind of role had Lynn played in those stories?
Certainly not a glorious one.
Because of that, it would be almost impossible for Swansea to recruit from English football.
Players capable of starting for mid-to-upper-table clubs in the Football League Third Division definitely would not co to Swansea.
As for the Second Division, First Division, or Premier League, there was no need to even think about it.
Swansea's influence, reputation, league status, manager, and recent situation all worked against them in recruitnt.
Unless so talented player was still hidden away in non-league football below the professional leagues, but that would be extrely rare — like buying a lottery ticket and waiting to win.
Could he discover future stars early?
Yes.
But many talents were already being watched by clubs before they beca known to the outside world.
Would Everton let Wayne Rooney leave?
Would West Ham United let Joe Cole and Frank Lampard leave?
Lynn also knew where Cesc Fàbregas, Xavi, Iniesta, Robben, Rafael van der Vaart, Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Klose, Ronaldinho, Kaká, and other such players were right now.
But if he represented Swansea and tried to sign those players, could he succeed?
Absolutely not.
Lynn sat half-perched on the edge of his desk, arms crossed, deep in thought.
He had to adjust his strategy.
He did not have much ti left for recruitnt.
In English football, his reputation was not good. He was seen as a madman, an inexperienced manager, and also an asian man.
It would be very difficult to make proud English players co and serve under him.
He had to shift his focus outside England.
And the conditions for selecting players also had to change.
The main target should be promising players from lower divisions in other leagues.
At the very least, outside English football, whether it was Lynn or Swansea, they might only be unknown — but they would not be surrounded by negative news.
Although Fleet Street was the news centre of Europe, other countries had no interest in reprinting stories about Lynn and Swansea City.
That would simply be a waste of space.
So outside England, Swansea would face slightly less resistance in recruitnt.
Then there was the matter of wages.
English football's pay could be considered among the highest.
Of course, it could not be compared with money-burning Serie A or a few individual clubs in La Liga, but overall, the average wage level in English football was among the very best in Europe.
For Swansea specifically, the terms Lynn could offer were limited.
But compared with lower-division clubs in other countries, they would naturally be extrely tempting.
For example, a transfer fee of 300,000 pounds might only count as an ordinary deal in the Football League Third Division.
But in the eyes of lower-division clubs from smaller European leagues, it would be a considerable amount of money, enough for them to take it very seriously.
If the fee were even higher, it would be sensational.
After sorting through the player list, Lynn found only one player who seed possible to secure.
A defender who would only turn twenty-one in August: Danny Gabbidon.
He had just been released by West Bromwich Albion and was currently searching for a new club.
Cardiff City were already in contact with him.
Lynn wrote down Danny Gabbidon's na, then exited the scouting system.
He called Mo Yuan and Tony Benn, arranging to have dinner that evening at the Imperial Garden Restaurant in the city centre.
....
At seven in the evening, Lynn drove to the Imperial Garden Restaurant in the city centre.
There were almost no restaurants in Swansea that could truly satisfy Lynn.
But for soone who had been eating Western food for a long ti, Imperial Garden was at least enough to offer a little salvation through asian flavours.
Putting aside the taste, even just a bowl of rice was enough.
Recently, he had been busy with work and had eaten almost all his lunches and dinners outside.
Otherwise, Lynn would definitely have gone ho obediently and enjoyed his mother cooking.
When Mo Yuan and Tony Benn arrived, Lynn was already sitting alone at the table, holding a large bowl of rice and wolfing it down with six dishes and one soup.
Lynn did not stand on ceremony.
He picked up the soup bowl, drank a large mouthful of fish soup, and said to the two of them, "I was starving, so I started first. Help yourselves."
Mo Yuan looked at the dishes on the table and complained, "Why did you order mapo tofu and boiled fish again? I've told you so many tis, this restaurant's food isn't authentic."
"Stop talking nonsense. If there's food to eat, just pick up your bowl with tears of gratitude and start eating!"
Lynn's chopsticks moved like lightning.
Mo Yuan first served himself a bowl of fish soup, while Benn awkwardly picked up his chopsticks, clearly unfamiliar with them.
During the al, Lynn assigned Mo Yuan the task of handling the club's attempt to sign Danny Gabbidon.
Then he asked Tony Benn to adjust the scouts' assignnts.
"Temporarily stop scouting work within English football. Send all the scouts to other parts of Europe. Germany, Spain, and Italy will be secondary targets. The smaller European countries will be the main focus."
Lynn's arrangent made Benn unable to stop himself from asking, "Are we going to sign players from smaller countries?"
Lynn ate three bowls of rice in one go, wiped his mouth, and said helplessly, "Yes. It's very difficult for us to sign players from the mainstream leagues. The club isn't attractive enough, or the players are too expensive. We can only hope to find hidden gems in smaller leagues."
Benn fell silent for a mont, then suggested, "Boss, if we still haven't put a squad together before August, I think we should still pay attention to players in the Third Division or even lower-level clubs. At the very least, we need to assemble a team."
Lynn did not want to dampen Benn's enthusiasm.
He knew Benn was right. It was necessary to prepare for both possibilities.
So he said, "Mm, I understand. If recruitnt hasn't gone smoothly by mid-July, we'll change our transfer strategy."
Only then did Benn relax.
He was genuinely afraid that harsh reality would shatter his boss's ideals into pieces.
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