Chapter 19: Pride
While Arsene Wenger was still pondering how to snatch Mikel Arteta from David Moyes in place of Denilson, there was a scene on the pitch that almost stopped his heart when Chelsea seized the final minute of the game to once again send the ball high into the Arsenal penalty area!
What appeared in Wenger's sight was Drogba's high head and Koscielny's rolling and crawling behind him, the ball...... This ball is just too dangerous!
Fortunately, God was still on the side of the home team today, and Drogba's close rush to the top turned out to be too hard because he wanted to score too much, and the ball smashed hard above the crossbar and finally flew off the bottom line.
With Chelsea's final shot of the game coming to an end, the Premier League's highlight of the game finally came to an end, with Arsenal winning and then losing, leading by three goals at half-time, only to be equalised by Chelsea in the second half, and if they were not lucky, they could even have created the biggest comeback of the season in the Premier League.
After the game, Wenger's anger was overflowing, there is no doubt that the 3 points in hand became 1 point, which was definitely an important reason for the professor's anger of the Thunder, but more importantly, Wenger saw some bad signs from this game, which was the most fatal blow to the team.
Underestimate the enemy!
Yes, underestimate the enemy.
Perhaps this may seem a bit nonsense, given that Chelsea have also been a bitter favourite for Arsenal over the years, especially under Jose Mourinho, who are the only league side to have the upper hand over Arsenal. How could Arsenal be underestimated?
But in fact, it is precisely because of the too impressive record this season and too "weak" opponents that the Arsenal players have become quite complacent at this stage of the game, and the league is still unbeaten in 11 league games so far this season, and they have only drawn one game in the entire August to October, which alone is enough reason for them to be proud. But the stadium is like a battlefield. There is a wise saying on the battlefield: arrogant soldiers will be defeated.
Arsenal are a proud team right now.
At the beginning of the season, people were still discussing whether Arsenal, who had suddenly changed their lineup, would have a huge rout this season. At that time, the Arsenal players actually didn't have much confidence in their hearts. Arsene Wenger has discarded the 442 that has been used for the past dozen years. The sudden decision to keep up with the 'international trend' made the Arsenal players, who used to play with four midfield and two strikers, really panic for a while, in the first half against Manchester United at the start of the season. It fully reflects the psychological worries and hidden dangers of the players.
However, no one expected that Descartes and the players spontaneously organized the change of formation in the face of adversity, saving Arsenal, and also casting this season of the Lions who are constantly shocking, from 433 to 451, Arsenal's record has improved by leaps and bounds, if the progress is huge, then I am afraid it is not enough, we can only call this progress a rocket surge.
And it is this sudden change from hell to heaven that has caused a lot of psychological shock to Arsenal's players, although these people are long-standing professional players, but professional players are also human beings, if they are surrounded by praise and sweet words every day, then anyone will undoubtedly have a sense of pride, not to mention Arsenal's players, even Wenger himself, has also floated in the center of the overwhelming praise of the media, as if he set the goal of this game: to win all three points! Once upon a time, Arsenal were absolutely sure to take all three points against Chelsea, a steely team?
The difference from three points to one point was only a small blow, and the bigger problem was the team's performance throughout the game.
While 3-3 looks like a good scoreline, at least Arsenal have scored three goals and maybe with a little tweaking at the back, they can still keep their winning streak going......
But that's not the case, and the truth is that without Descartes' two magical goals, this game could well have been Arsenal's first rout of the season.
From the analysis of the data of the whole game, we can see that the percentage of possession of Arsenal and Chelsea in this game is 53% and 47% respectively, and it seems that the Gunners still have a slight advantage, but everyone knows that Chelsea's tactics in this game are defensive counterattacks, and when the opponent is fully defending, he can only lead by 6 percentage points in possession, which is enough to explain the gap between the players on both sides in running; The other set of data is more intuitive, the number of shots Arsenal 6:9, one side wants to attack and can't attack, the other side is occasionally seizing the opportunity to play a counterattack, from this point of view, the scene of this game can be called dull, but in such a "dull" game, this season with super attack power to shock the crowd Arsenal, even in the number of shots behind Chelsea!
Perhaps their only shining light was Descartes' unbelievable three goals in three shots.
But it was Descartes' highlight performance that contrasted Arsenal's sluggish performance in this game, the number of corners, the number of invasions into the box, the number of shots on target, the number of interceptions, the number of effective passes, and in almost all statistics, Arsenal was in a comprehensive lag.
Arsene Wenger's anger can almost burst out of his eyes, but don't get me wrong, it's not just his players' underperformance that he's angry about, but also his frustration with himself.
Wenger is very clear that as a veteran with many years of coaching experience, he should have seen some bad signs in the team's winning streak early on, but unfortunately, as we said before, even he himself was overwhelmed by the overwhelming praise of the media during this time, and he was only calculating how much he should control the point difference in the league so as not to affect the Champions League game, and even thinking about how to pick opponents in the knockout rounds of the Champions League, how to be able to balance the gap between the league and the Champions League, By the way, there is a chance to win an FA Cup or League Cup, and the pain of not winning a title for several years has really made Wenger almost crazy, and last season's FA Cup was better than nothing. It was really not enough to satisfy his hunger for the title, and the strong performance of the team this season has greatly stimulated his restless heart, and in the face of the wonderful prospects, he has almost forgotten the "pebbles" on the road.
But it was such a "small pebble" that struck Arsenal at a critical moment, and it also made their momentum of this season's soaring momentum suddenly hit a wall that was neither soft nor hard.
Admittedly, Arsenal retained their unbeaten league run because of Descartes' luck, but after the game all the media had mixed opinions about the game. In their opinion. Arsenal's draw was a fluke, if it weren't for Descartes' two inexplicable goals, if it weren't for Drogba's slightly too hard in the final stages...... All in all, there are plenty of reasons in the media to think that Arsenal have finally been beaten out of shape by a tenacious Chelsea side in this game. Their season is in crisis. It's just here!
We have to say. The media are truly the most volatile and unpredictable creatures in the world, and just a day ago, they were struggling over who could end Arsenal's winning streak this season. They even tried to support Chelsea, because they were facing a behemoth that seemed almost invincible this season, but after just one game, the "behemoth" in their mouth suddenly collapsed, and Chelsea became the David who bravely defeated the dragon - although they were still a minute or two away from defeating the dragon, but in the eyes of the media, Chelsea really won this round of competition, and Arsenal, they just didn't die, they left to die, There's not much time left!
Even Chelsea's acting coach Ray. Mr. Wilkins, who shared the same sentiment as the media, said in his post-match press conference: "If this game had been extended by five minutes, maybe we would have been the winners." When the old man said this, his expression was sincere, his movements were slightly exaggerated, he didn't even look at Wenger next to him, his face was already pale, yes, that's what he thought in his heart, so he didn't care about Wenger's opinion at all, he saw what happened in the Chelsea dressing room at half-time, so he had every reason to be proud and proud of his disciples.
What a funny scene, equally proud, Wenger is ashamed and angry for his disciples, and Wilkins is genuinely proud of his disciples.
What makes Wenger even more depressed is that in the face of Wilkins' boastful performance, he is completely unable to give his opponent any counterattack from words, because where the process of the game is, everyone can see that Wilkins is telling the truth, and this draw was "picked up" by Arsenal.
Wenger, who was vomited by the media and Wilkins Sr. at the press conference to almost vomit blood, returned to the locker room and ruthlessly vented all his anger on his disciples, except for Descartes, who scored a hat trick in this game, all the players were pointed at his nose and scolded a bloody dog, even Descartes, was also scolded by Wenger painlessly, because he did not return to the team's bench after leaving the field, but changed his clothes and appeared in Hill. Mr. Wood's VIP box.
Wenger knows that this is Descartes' desire to spend more time with his fiancée, and if it is in the case of the team winning, there is no need to care about such a subsection, but now the team is playing like a piece of shit, and almost losing the season, Descartes's behavior will naturally be criticized.
Descartes, who was implicated for no reason, was also very annoyed, you said that your girlfriend finally looked forward to the year and the moon to come back to the scene to watch yourself play, everything was fine, and she helped the team to take a three-goal lead, which is already an almost unshakable gap on the football field, but who knows that these teammates messed up their celebrations, although the team was equalized and seemed to have little to do with themselves, but in front of Angel Jie Li failed to do his best, Descartes still held a fire in his heart, and now he was criticized by Wenger, that cloud of qi instantly burned into his chest.
"What the is this?" After the team disbanded, Descartes, who came to the bar, frustrated himself with a bottle of beer and complained to Walcott and the others, this party was originally booked to celebrate Angelie's first appearance on the court and the team's victory, who would have thought that now it turned into a grievance meeting: "You didn't hold the three balls, can you blame me?" ”
Walcott still showed a hint of shame on his face, while Diabi's dark complexion didn't show anything unusual at all, but neither of them had good expressions because the game was really ...... Suffocating!
As players, Walcourt and the others certainly knew that most of the reason for the game was played like this was because of their own pride, but they would never say it, they could only stuff their heads and pour wine into their mouths, hoping that after getting drunk, this sad day would quickly turn over and let them face a new page.
However, the new page is not so easy to face, after the cancellation of the team's holiday, Wenger on the next day to start his rectification campaign, the previous day in the game on the pitch failed to do their best, all of them were lined up in the substitute team, he put a large number of players who can only play as substitutes this season into the main lineup, and made it very clear: this is the starting lineup for the next game, those who think they are the main force of the iron bench, If you can't reflect on your performance in the last game, you will really become an "iron bench" - the one on the bench.
Wenger's authority is absolutely unshakable, and his thunderous anger has also given the players who have just taken off the reins a hard blow, after this stern lesson, the Arsenal players finally put away those negative thoughts in their hearts, and put all their attention on the game, even Descartes, who had just lived a happy two-person world, also resumed his eight-hour training a day, this is the first time since Angeli came to London, Descartes was able to get up from the warm bed at four o'clock in the morning, Before, his mind was still very entangled, not only wanting to use crazy training like Kobe to keep himself at the top of his life, but also reluctant to Angeli's warm and soft body, but now it's okay, Wenger is furious, and Descartes is finally determined to say goodbye to his children's love, so as not to be really short of breath in the end.
Arsenal, who were greatly stimulated, finally showed their completely different mental outlook in the subsequent round of the Premier League, and those substitutes who had managed to mix in the start this season, such as Juroud, Hoyt, Eboue, Bendtner, etc., released their long-suppressed desire to play in this game, which made the black cat Sunderland, who was still hoping for an upset, very hurt, and their manager Roy. Keane also had to continue to bury his hatred for Arsenal somewhere deep in his heart.
This victory finally put Arsenal back on the right track, and also let the media gloat for days have somewhat calmed down, although they did not intend to let Arsenal go, but after all, the Gunners have just been suppressed The momentum is high again, and they have to temporarily rein in their writing, and turn around and become the "followers" of Wenger's army again, but the nature of the media is destined to them are just silently waiting for the opportunity, waiting for a God-given opportunity for Arsenal to capsize in the gutter.
When will Arsenal's first defeat come? (To be continued......)