As Descartes' performance is getting better and better, Arsenal is also making great progress in the league and Europe, according to relevant media statistics, as of January 4, Arsenal has scored 42 goals in the league, conceded only 16 goals, and also scored 17 goals in the European competition and the League Cup.

Of the more than half a hundred goals, Descartes contributed nine goals and 11 assists, Cesc Fabregas had seven goals and 16 assists, and if you don't count the 12 goals of the team's top scorer Adebayor, the team has more than 40 goals related to the two of them.

For a time, the title of "Gemini" appeared in the media again.

Arsenal had such a situation in the second half of last season, when Thierry Henry was injured and Gilberto was physically unable to support the second half of the season, it was the excellent performances of Descartes and Cesc Fabregas that saved the team, which was once called "double star shine" by the media.

However, in the first half of the season, due to Descartes being disturbed by off-field factors, he has never been able to show the form of the second half of last season, so Arsenal has also become a one-legged walk, if it is not for Adebayo's sudden outburst, they may have to go more difficult in the league this season.

But now that everything has passed, and after the entanglement with Zhenma is over, the media suddenly found that Descartes seemed to be a different person, his attention on the field became more concentrated, and there was no longer any distraction, so his performance naturally rose, which also led Arsenal to suddenly embark on a high-speed path after entering December.

Throughout December, Arsenal achieved a good record of 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss in addition to the unexpected capsizing in Sevilla, and also widened the gap with Manchester United to 4 points, at this time Manchester United has lost 3 games, but Arsenal is still in the league to maintain the golden body.

With such excellent results, Arsenal of course won various awards in the Premier League's monthly selection, the best team, the best coach, the best team, Arsenal has a bumper harvest, the only regret is that in the best player evaluation, Descartes and Xiaofa have failed to beat Ronaldo, ranking second or third.

After the big game with Arsenal, Cristiano Ronaldo seemed to have a sense of shame and courage, and he made a big splash in all competitions that followed, scoring 13 goals in the league with overhead kicks, regaining the top spot in the league scorer list, and in the Champions League, he scored nine goals in the group alone.

In the face of Ronaldo, who exploded, Descartes and Cesc Fabregas did not lose unjustly.

However, under the prosperous surface, not everything is smooth, there are always two sides to things, and with glory, there will naturally be filth underneath.

As Descartes has become more and more active, the problems that had occurred in the second half of last season have resurfaced.

That's about the distribution of the ball.

Cesc Fabregas is not a man who loves the ball, of course, neither is Descartes, but as we have said before, a team will always have a core, and whoever will be the core will determine who must preside over the distribution of the ball.

This is where the contradiction between Fabregas and Descartes lies.

Xiaofa is the core of the professor's handpicking, and within Arsenal, all the players revolve around him, and he determines the team's attacking direction, running routes, tempo changes, and even attack and defense.

The so-called core is not as simple as running, taking the ball, passing, assisting, but the whole team has to surround him, change according to his changes, run according to his running, he is equivalent to the engine of a car, when the engine turns, the tires can turn, when the engine is turned off, the tires can never turn on their own - unless downhill.

So whether it is active or passive, whether subjective or objective, it is destined that Fabregas must be the one in the team who holds the ball for a long time, even if the opponent adopts special defensive means against him, the other players must pay attention to hand the ball to him at all times and let him organize in the right position.

And coincidentally, Descartes, who is used to being the core of the team, is exactly such a player.

Descartes is different from pure goalscorers like Robin van Persie and Bam Adebayo, he has played in Pavia for so many years, and because of the strength of the team, he always needs to organize and shoot with both hands, and he runs a lot up front, in fact, because he has to have more possession of the ball, and then decide the direction of the team.

The reason why he is valued by the professor is precisely because he has this quality, which can be an excellent complement to Arsenal's shortcomings in the squad after Bergkamp's retirement, and the professor has high expectations of him and has been working hard to cultivate his talent in this area.

However, this is where the problem arises.

When Bergkamp was at Arsenal, Arsenal's midfielders were Vieira and Gilberto, one of whom was a conscientious pure midfielder, and the other was a "semi-modern organizational midfielder" who was stronger than attacking: The reason why Vieira is a "modern organizational midfielder" is because his range of activity is mostly away from the opponent's half-field area, and more often in front of his team's backline.

With these two defensive defenders in place, complemented by sharp breakthroughs from wingers Ljungberg and Andreas Pire, Arsenal's playmaker at the time was effectively Bergkamp – playing as a striker but as a midfielder.

With only one central player, it is certainly fine to play like this, and Arsenal even went unbeaten in 49 games in the 03-04 season, setting a record for the Premier League since its inception.

But now that Arsenal have Cesc Fabregas as the de facto playmaker, and Arsene Wenger is trying to develop Descartes into another playmaker, and there are two playmakers in a team, what will happen?

If the professor tells all the players that these two are the core, you have to match them when they get the ball. Then Arsenal's attack will definitely become more complicated - even if a player does not take the ball in a game, there may be hundreds of runs and tens of thousands of meters of running distance, when there are two playmakers in the team, they must pay attention to adjust their position at any time, keep a suitable distance from two different cores at any time, people are not machines, and the end result of this can only make Arsenal's players chaotic on the pitch, and eventually run to collapse.

So it is impossible for the professor to give such instructions, and there can only be one core that he has clearly established, and that is Fabregas.

But on the other hand, he was encouraging Descartes to actually perform the core duties of the organization, which created a problem: Descartes was working hard and the statistics seemed to be good, but he always had a sense that he was powerless.

His goals and assists were often done on his own or with a few strikers and wing-backs, and the actual interaction with the team's playmaker, Cesc Fabregas, was actually pitiful.

It's not because Peta or Descartes are selfish and reluctant to pass the ball, but because they both share the same principle of distributing the ball: pass to the position where the teammate is the most threatening.

Descartes often unconsciously retreats to get the ball, and Cesc Fabregas is in the midfield, and for both of them, the other is usually not the most threatening one, so they have very little contact with each other, except for passing the ball to each other in transition or when they are being strained, other times they are like the accelerator and brake on a car, one gets up, the other goes down.

The twin stars shine in the crown that the media put on them, but there are really only a handful of moments when they can actually see both of them shine at the same time in a game.

The only thing to be thankful for is that Descartes always comes on in the second half of the game, and at this time Cesc Fabregas's physical strength has also fallen into a kind of bottleneck stage, and the two of them have not had much conflict with the control of the ball at this time.

But Arsenal's opponents are not wood, they know how to learn from their experience, and this change in Arsenal quickly fell into their eyes and became one of the topics they studied.

With the surname in place, the teams were much more prepared against Arsenal, who pinched Cesc Fabregas in the first half and Descartes in the second, which allowed Arsenal to achieve satisfactory results in every game, but the process became more and more difficult.

On January 12, Arsenal's first game after the Devil's schedule, Arsenal played Birmingham City, and they were blocked by their opponents very specifically.

In the first half, Cesc Fabregas was besieged by the Birmingham midfield, and he tried to burn the fire to the opponent's half, but Birmingham discharged two tough guys in the midfield, Muamba and Galli, whether Xiaofa was in the forward or back position, there would always be a person who accompanied him like a shadow, and Fabregas, who was unwilling to run desperately, exhausted all his strength, and failed to break through the cage set up for him by the Birmingham.

Seeing that the team was scoreless, the professor pouted and sent Descartes with a big wave.

originally thought that after Descartes came on the field, the team had an extra playmaker in the frontcourt, and the attack would be much smoother, but who expected that Birmingham coach Bruce had already prepared, and England's local defender Jaidi led the way and formed a pinchback attack on Descartes with Muamba.

At this time, Xiaofa was about to take a breath because of the excessive running distance in the first half, and the ball was unconsciously transitioned to the feet of Descartes, but Descartes repeated the encounter of Xiaofa in the first half and was blocked by the Birmingham.

The two cores, one after the other, were locked in a cage by the opponent one after another, and the professor's brows were almost twisted into a figure-eight.

As a result, before Xiaofa could catch his breath, Descartes found a way to break through the Birmingham blockade, and the visitors were the first to score at the Emirates Stadium.

A simple corner, you can say luck or a good plan, but in any case, this is the first time Arsenal have fallen behind at home this season.

Arsenal immediately launched a frantic comeback after conceding the goal, but it was only then that the problems that had been hidden within the team finally became apparent.

Cesc Fabregas wanted to take back the ball, so he moved his position to the front, and Descartes was trying to break the opponent's cage, so he put his position back, and the two collided, and there was a "duo" in the front, and the rest of the Arsenal team suddenly didn't know what to do.

One second ago, it was still Xiaofa who took the ball, Van Persie was about to run out of the penalty area to answer for him, who expected that the ball was passed to Descartes in the next second, and then Descartes picked up the pass, the ball went over the head of the Birmingham defender, but Van Persie, who was supposed to be there, had already run out of the big penalty line......

In the last second, the ball was also divided to the side by Xiaofa, Walcourt broke through with the ball, and Rosicky on the other side was about to move closer to the middle to increase the number of people in the penalty area, who expected that the ball would be knocked to Descartes by Walket in the next second, and then Descartes suddenly transferred the ball to the left, ready to hit the Birmingham people by surprise, who expected that at this time Rosicky had run to the middle, and the ball flew directly out of the sideline......

Judging from the situation on the field, those who understand understand that this is because the players' organizational thinking is chaotic, and they don't know who to cooperate with, but those who don't understand only see frequent mistakes, constantly wasting physical strength and running blindly, and even the fans on the sidelines have issued sporadic boos for the team.

It looked as if Arsenal had lost their assertion in the face of the Birmingham's impregnable defence and didn't know how to get the ball into the opposition's box.

This seems to Arsenal fans, who have always prided themselves on "getting the ball into the opposing goal".

Arsene Wenger on the sidelines naturally spotted the problem.

He frowned at first, and began to think carefully about where the problem was, and when he figured it out, a wry smile appeared on his face, Bruce played good chess, worthy of being Ferguson's personal disciple, and he could grasp the context of Arsenal so delicately.

What should I do?

If it were another player, such as Diarra or Di Bia, Arsene Wenger's solution would of course be very simple, put me back in the midfield position and hand over the front to Descartes.

But Jr. is not Diarra, nor is it Debia, he is the core of Wenger's own playmaking, and he is also the captain of the team, he has the right to decide when to go up and when to withdraw on the pitch, and the other players must obey his command on the pitch.

If Arsene Wenger were to drop him back to the central midfield at this time, it would be a negation of his central position and all the efforts he has made in three seasons.

Can't the back be the core? Of course not, Pirlo, Xavi, Alonso, all show that the midfield position can also be the team's attacking playmaker and core, but we must understand that each player has his own technical characteristics, not everyone can be Pirlo, become Xavi.

Andrea Pirlo's long balls are unparalleled in the world, Xavi has Iniesta, Sergio Busquets and Barcelona's overall delicate short ball penetration, allowing him to move freely between halves, but does Cesc Fabregas have that?

Of course he didn't.

Xiaofa's long pass can be said to be qualified, but it is definitely not a stunt, and Arsenal's style of play, although gorgeous, is far from Barcelona's style of passing back and forth to your dizziness, when the team needs to strengthen the attack, he appears in the position of the front midfield, which is definitely much more threatening than the position of the back midfield.

Otherwise, why did Barcelona's coach always like to use Xiaofa as the fulcrum when there is no striker? It's because his technical style is more similar to that of a striker, rather than the same surname as Xavi, who is willing to stay behind Messi.

The different technical characteristics determine that the professor cannot simply let the two of them stay in the back and one stay in the front court like Vieira and Bergkamp, and then solve the problem.

If there is an irreconcilable contradiction between the two, one of them must make a sacrifice, which is an immutable truth.

And in order to establish the core position of Xiaofa and the core tactics that the team has adhered to for three seasons, this sacrifice can only be Descartes, and there is no other way.

The professor made his decision almost in a short time, and he sighed softly from the sidelines, then pulled Volcotra over to him, leaned close to him and whispered, "Tell Descartes to stay in the box and not come out." ”

Walcott was stunned for a moment, until he saw his determination in the professor's eyes, then nodded blankly, and then ran to Descartes. (To be continued.) )