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On December 13, Arsenal, in the face of criticism from all walks of life, attacked again in the league, defeating Southampton 3-1 at home to the mid-table Southampton team in the league, which is also controlled by Chinese capital. With Tottenham losing and continuing to dominate the Premier League table, the lead looks unshakable.

Next Thursday, when facing the last opponent of the Europa League group, Czech Slavia Prague, Li Mudi still boldly used a group of young players to finally get a draw, and advanced to next year's knockout round with an unbeaten record of 3 wins and 3 draws.

Midweek was by no means a lucky day for England as only three of the teams in the Champions League group stage managed to make it through, with Tottenham, who were thought to be no big surprises before the game, finishing third in the group and being relegated to the Europa League after the final defeat to Lyon.

The three teams competing in Europe's second-largest club competition have been even worse, with Chelsea being crushed by fellow Sporting de Portugal and sure to face a strong opponent in the quarter-finals, while Watford simply failed to squeeze into the top two of Group H, where they were the first Premier League side to be knocked out of two European competitions this season.

However, none of this has anything to do with Li Moody and Arsenal, and the end of European competition and the exit from the Carabao Cup have allowed them to play a week before the winter break with the rest of the big clubs, which is of course good news for the Gunners, who desperately need to secure league results.

It's just that life is not as good as it should be, even if they think they are fully prepared, but in the 19th round of the away game against Everton, the Premier League leaders still can't continue the excellent form of the previous two consecutive wins.

At Goodison Park, the Toffees, coached by Portuguese teenager Marco Silva, almost replicated the same tactic used by Arsenal when they hosted Manchester City two games ago, which was to swing the bus on the occasional counter-attack, which was also very effective for the Gunners, who also lacked a central striker.

Throughout the first half, the visitors had 65 per cent possession and were the absolute leader in shots on goal, but only three of their 12 attempts came from inside the opposition box, a percentage that is a testament to how well Everton did their job of closing their own box.

In the case that Lacazette was unable to play due to injury, Li Mudi only had two center forwards available, Meiyang Yang and Heibei, the former left the field before the end of the first half because he was kicked by the opposing defender and injured his ankle and could not continue to persevere, which directly completely disrupted many of the coaching staff's deployments before the game.

Welbeck, who came off the bench but was out of form, was arguably poor on the pitch, and against the Colombian international Yerry Mina and Frenchman Kurt Zouma, a centre-back duo who were just entering the prime of their careers, Blackbeck was unable to take advantage of the physicality or open up enough space in the box with his heavy feet to help his team-mates get their chances. Fortunately, his attitude is quite positive, and he is always trying to adjust himself, hoping to get back to normal feeling as soon as possible.

However, it was the hosts who looked to be passive in the game, and in the 71st minute, substitute Arsenal veteran Theo Walcott, nicknamed "Little Tiger", used a long-lost personal raid to disrupt the defence of his former club. Mustafi kicked down the 31-year-old winger in a panic, and given the location of the incident in the away box, and given Theo Walcott's pained and seemingly imminent death, the penalty and red card package fell on the Gunners' head once again.

Icelandic sniper Sigurdsson used his golden right foot to send the ball into the back of the net with great precision against the right-hand post to give the home side the lead.

It is worth mentioning that this is the fourth penalty awarded to Arsenal this season, ranking first among all the top six teams in the table. However, this is a small number for the Gunners, who have recorded nine and eleven penalties in their two years in charge, and have been one of the worst teams in the Premier League in the Premier League when they were still in charge.

This is naturally the reason for the recklessness and lack of defensive ability of the Gunners players, but no one can deny that the referee's over-strictness and even some misjudgments still exist. Nothing is said to be targeted, at least Arsenal's luck in this regard must be relatively bad.

Just like Mustafi's goal, there is no doubt about the penalty, but the direct red card cannot be understood by Li Mudi and others, even if it directly hinders Walcott's possible next attack, but this does not involve an oversized foul, nor does it exist in the case of the last defender, at most a yellow card is enough. But perhaps due to the extremely painful expression of the little tiger lying on the ground, the referee on duty made the harshest decision, so that the Gunners had to face the extreme disadvantage of falling behind by one goal and one less player in the remaining 20 minutes.

Fortunately, the confidence and momentum accumulated in half a season still helped them get through this difficult time at a critical moment, and Xhaka, who was appointed in a critical situation, penetrated the Ten Fingers Pass of the Three Lions' main international Pickford with a shocking long-range shot with less than three minutes of regular time, so that Arsenal did not end with a defeat halfway through the league schedule.

Manchester City's victory in this round has brought the difference between the two teams to 5 points, which has entered the range of pursuit, making the suspense of the Premier League title worthy of more people's attention.

However, Li Moody and his team were not without good news, with a record of 16 wins, 2 draws and 1 defeat breaking Arsenal's record for the best half of the Premier League era. The 50 points also put them in the top three of the league's record list, behind Manchester City in 2017-18 and Chelsea in 2005-06. If they still have the same score in the second round, they will tie the record set by Blue Moon three years ago with a final score of 100.

It's just that this may not be big, generally speaking, the second half of the league is always much more difficult than the first stage, and Li Muddy has set himself a target of 94 to 96 points, which should be enough to reach the top of the Premier League under normal circumstances.

This means that the Gunners must earn at least 44 points in the second half, and on a 19-game basis, that is, 13 wins, 5 draws and 1 loss, which may not seem too impressive, but it is still quite difficult to succeed in the Premier League, which is full of strong opponents.

For example, Manchester City, the team that set the league points record, was a dominance at home at the time, but even without much influence from other competitions (an early exit in the FA Cup, a Champions League in the quarter-finals, and a League Cup title, but the final was played in February), they only managed 45 points in the second half of the league, which is 10 points less than in the first round, and you can get a sense of how difficult it is in the later stages.

Even Manchester City, who have a strong bench, will not be able to maintain their good form throughout the season, so Arsenal, who have a very poor bench lineup, should not want to achieve their goal easily. Therefore, Li Muddy is now urgent to solve two things, the first is to make an appropriate adjustment to the team's lineup in the winter transfer window, and strive to make the Gunners' strength go up to the next level. The second thing will not be decided immediately, and it will depend on whether the FA Cup, which will start in early January, will also be strategically abandoned.

Just as the Gunners boss was distracted by his team's plans, the quarter-finals of the English League Cup were in full swing in midweek, and as a result, the four traditional giants of Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United, won the right to qualify in four Premier League civil battles, and there was a rare upset.

The next day is the Christmas holiday (Thursday is Christmas Eve), which is the most important thing in Western countries throughout the year, and even if there is no winter break before, the FA and the Premier League will not let the players play in these two days without humanity, but it is inevitable that a large number of game tasks will be arranged in the days after the other, and the good time of the national holiday will increase income.

And now that the winter break system has been implemented in line with the whole of European football, this holiday still has to be taken seriously, in addition to the pre-holiday League Cup, the weekend league is also the main event.

Unlike the Serie A two round-robin half-way comparisons (that is, the opponents in the first round are the same as those in the twentieth round, but the order of home and away is reversed, and the Bundesliga also uses this "worry-free" schedule), the Premier League, La Liga and Ligue 1 use an asymmetrical matchup, although the two sides of a round of ten games in the second half of the game are also the same as one of the first half of the round, switching home and away, but there is no necessary connection in the order.

Coupled with the disruption of other cup competitions and make-up matches, it is not uncommon to see two teams facing each other in consecutive league games for a month or even two weeks, which is a feature of the top five leagues that only the Premier League can see.

So the second gun battle of the season was staged on the afternoon of December 27, and such a big show was arranged during the Christmas-New Year's holiday, which was obviously loved by all British fans, and the remaining less than 10,000 tickets after deducting the season tickets were almost sold out in the shortest possible time. Before the game, the sports programs of various media were basically based on predicting and analyzing the grievances of the old rivals meeting again, which hyped the atmosphere of the game to a very high level.

The end result is a testament to the success of the Premier League and the FA, which is another super football feast with more than 400 million viewers worldwide, and also proves that the Premier League is indeed the most widely watched league in the world at the moment. Don't mention to me any major football league in the United States, the viewership of that thing is not low, but it is a little unsuitable for people from the North American continent, and people from the two continents of Europe and Asia are just watching a lively one, and the influence is really not great.

But this gun demon battle is completely different, not only has the grudge and feud between the two teams for more than 20 years as the background, but also has several other highlights that have attracted public attention, such as: Li Muddy and Scholes have changed from colleagues standing in a trench to opponents, what kind of sparks will burst out in this encounter; Can Arsenal withstand the pressure of the pursuers behind them and continue to dominate the table; Manchester United did have a certain rebound after the former world No. 1 coach Jose Mourinho fired, but due to the strength of the opponent, it cannot be considered that it has come out of the trough, and in the face of the litmus test of the league leader, whether it can continue the previous excellent performance, etc.

The suspense was answered after 90 minutes, but it was a joy and a worry for supporters on both sides.

The two managers showed a very high standard in terms of tactical arrangements and on-the-spot responses before the game, especially Scholes's bold deployment of four strikers to fight to the death and successfully equalize the score when the score fell behind in the second half.

It was just that the man sitting in the home team's dugout was still a good player, taking advantage of the gap between the visitors' left wing-back Luke Shaw and setting the score at 2-1 by Alexandre Lacazette, who had returned from injury.

The result gave Arsenal a good start to the second half of the league campaign, but it also caused the Red Devils, who had a wave of six wins, two draws and one defeat after the change of manager, to suffer their second defeat since Paul Scholes took over, temporarily delaying their attempt to challenge for a Champions League place.

Especially with the other strong teams winning this round, the situation of the losing side in this game is a little less optimistic.

The top half of the table as of the end of the 20 rounds is as follows: Arsenal 53 points, Manchester City 48 points, Tottenham Hotspur 45 points, Liverpool 42 points, Chelsea 39 points, Manchester United 35 points, West Ham United 31 points, Leicester City 30 points, Everton 28 points and Newcastle 28 points.

But five points is not enough for the Gunners, who will have to try to extend that lead before the real difficult times come, but that will be something that the team will only be able to accomplish in the first half of 2021.