Chapter 53: The Battle for the Top Cards
When Arsene Wenger returned to the training ground, he noticed that there were some different changes to his squad compared to the past.
The most notable thing is that the players are more connected on the pitch, and they are constantly shouting to position their teammates and plan their own balls, which is not common in Arsenal's past training matches, or even official matches.
In the past, Arsenal had Cesc Fabregas and Toure in the past, and the players generally did not speak casually due to their seniority and status, and Galla liked to be loud, but in the end they broke up with Toure, which made the rest of the team even more silent.
But when he arrived early this morning, Wenger found that there were constant shouts everywhere on the pitch, some people complained about the wrong ball, some people praised the ball when the ball was passed, in short, it was as if the whole stadium was alive, full of vitality.
This is exactly what Wenger wanted to see, so he had a satisfied smile on his face, and he was even more curious about yesterday's "internal meeting": what exactly did his players make in the conference room to make them look new today?
Some owners like to meddle in the team's dressing room, such as Real Madrid's old Fernandes, who even attends "internal meetings" held by Raul and others to show his authority and presence; Some owners have left it to the head coach and players to deal with the dressing room themselves, such as Arsenal president Hill. Wood.
And among the coaches, some of the extra practice will also get along with the players, and they will be with the players at all times. For example, Milan's head coach Carlo Ancelotti is himself a member of the "Knights of the Round Table"; Some coaches like to keep a certain distance from the players to show their authority, such as Arsene Wenger.
Arsene Wenger didn't attend yesterday's "internal meeting", he didn't even ask the players about the content of the meeting after the meeting, in his opinion, he has been in charge of Arsenal for ten years, and the team is almost all the players he has introduced and coached, and he knows best what these players are thinking. He doesn't need to be involved in their internal affairs at all. These little ones can't escape their control.
However, he didn't expect that the results of the team's meeting were somewhat unexpected, and their performance on the pitch made it feel like Arsenal were rejuvenated, which is rare in the past three seasons. Even in the season when Arsenal were unbeaten in winning the title. There was no such lively atmosphere in the team.
This gives Arsene Wenger confidence in the upcoming tough clash with Manchester United.
Arsenal are currently ranked 4th in the league with 7 wins, 1 draw and 3 losses. They are just under the beaten end of Manchester United, four points clear of the top two teams, Liverpool and Chelsea, who have been in excellent form this season. All of them are tied for the top spot with a record of 8 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss.
A win for Arsenal would overtake their old rivals Manchester United and deal a major blow to their arch-rivals' hopes of defending their Premier League title this season.
Therefore, Arsene Wenger takes this game very seriously, and the shock defeat to Hull City in the last game was not due to his over-rotation and too many key players on the bench, and he left these main players on the bench in order to prepare for this game against Manchester United.
However, in some ways, Wenger is really not good at rotation, he either does not change, or a change is a stubble, the team's lineup is either stable and tired, or it is like a marquee that cannot be fixed, which makes Arsenal's players very uncomfortable.
It looks like Arsene Wenger has been in the Premier League for 10 years and he still has a lot to learn in terms of rotation.
And Manchester United have not been in great shape this season, they have not been able to withstand Real Madrid's golden dollar attack, selling the team's top card Cristiano. Ronaldo, who then made no achievements in the summer market, did not even bring in a signings of more than £2 million - originally Lord Froferto was very ambitious after getting Cristiano Ronaldo's £80 million transfer fee, and he wrote four names on the list of signings: right-back Danny from Sevilla. Alves, right-back Richards from Manchester City, goalkeeper Carlos from Espanyol. Kameni, a center forward from Lyon. Benzema.
It's a pity that like Arsene Wenger of Arsenal, in the end, none of the four players he favored came, whether it was Manchester City or Real Madrid Barcelona, they all beat Ferguson's fame and status with a series of 0s on the checkbook, so that these players turned to their arms, and Lord Ferguson could only hide in the dark and secretly jump his feet.
As a result, after the start of the Premier League this season, Manchester United and Arsenal are both paying their debts for mistakes in the summer transfer market, Arsenal have lost three of their 11 games, accumulating only 22 points, while Manchester United is not much better, drawing three and losing one, only two points more than Arsenal.
This next leg is crucial for both sides.
On November 8 at the Emirates Stadium in Arsenal, 60,000 spectators waved flags and various signs in their hands and let out a deafening shout to cheer on their teams and cheer for their arch-rivals Manchester United.
Manchester United's starting line-up for this game has not changed much compared to last season, with Van der Sar, Ferdinand, and Nemanja Vidic still the iron triangle at the back. Neville gradually faded out of the main squad due to age, Brown made a temporary cameo in his position, and Ferguson's spare tire in this position was Rafael, who was only 18 years old, and like the Neville brothers, Rafael is also a brother, and they are twin brothers, the elder brother Rafael is a right-back, and the younger brother Fabio is a left-back, and the two brothers are considered to have inherited the glorious tradition of the Neville brothers in Manchester United.
As for the starting left-back of this game, it was Evra from France, and after the French successfully squeezed out Heinze's position, he occupied the position of Manchester United for 5 years, and his strength was not ordinarily strong.
Due to the departure of the core Ronaldo in the midfield, Lord Ferguson launched the "No. 7 3.0 version" in a timely manner, and another Portuguese teenager Nani took over Ronaldo's gun, almost the same fancy as Ronaldo, and almost the same size as Ronaldo, except for a rich and handsome, a black, Manchester United fans are cheering for the team to usher in "Ronaldo II".
But whether Nani is "Ronaldo II" or not is a matter of opinion. At least until the end of 2013, Nani failed to reach the heights that Ronaldo had reached at Manchester United, but rumors of his departure continued to appear, and Ferdin's attempt to replicate Ronaldo was largely a failure.
With the exception of Nani, the rest of the midfield remains the same, with "Trilobe" Park Ji-sung running aggressively and occasionally contributing to a missed goal or two, and Ferguson always thinks of him when United need to play tough games, while Carrick is gradually becoming the metronome of Manchester United, although he does not have Keane's intimidation and strong defense. But it finally lived up to Lord Fu's £18.6 million payment.
As for Hargreaves, another youngster who played for Arsenal last season. Now that he's completely on the hospital bed, Hargreaves is by no means the first to be able to spell himself into a glass man in the midfield, but he's definitely the most regrettable one. What an amazing performance he had at Bayern. But after returning to Manchester United at a high price, it was abolished immediately. Not only did Manchester United burn 26 million euros for nothing, but it also made England lose a strong enough waist.
As a last resort, Lord Fergus had no choice but to send the "two old" Ryan Giggs and Scholes in this game. The combined age of the two has reached 79 years old, and ordinary players are basically in the stage of retirement or retirement at this age, but these two descendants of Lord Fu are still fighting for their mentor on the green field, which really can't help but make people feel uplifted!
On the front line are the "double short" Rooney and Tevez, Tevez came from West Ham United last season, although he made a fuss because of the ownership of financial rights, but he performed well on the field, scored 22 goals in all competitions, is the team's second striker after Cristiano Ronaldo, more than Rooney, so he has been able to stay this season, he now has only one thought in mind: to score more goals, so that Lord Ferguson will spend 30 million pounds to keep him at the end of the season.
Unlike Tevez, who is worried about his future, this season is the time for Lu Xiaopang to raise his eyebrows.
Last season, Lord Fu changed the team's tactics for Ronaldo, and the biggest sacrifice was Lu Xiaopang, who scored 7 goals in the first ten games, and the efficiency was not high, but in order to give full play to Ronaldo's potential, Lord Fu pulled behind the front line to become a shadow striker, while Rooney and Saha and others had to cover for Ronaldo, constantly pulling the opponent's back defense, and only had the opportunity to appear in front of the camera when he picked up the leak, so Rooney's goal production in the second half of the season decreased sharply, After playing a total of 19 goals throughout the season, I almost suffocated to death in my breath.
This is also the main reason why Rooney is dissatisfied with Lord Fernando and has to make trouble in the future: he and Ronaldo have a feud in the World Cup, as everyone knows, but Lord Ferguson sacrificed his tactical position and interests in order to make Ronaldo popular, which is tolerable, which is unbearable!
But this contradiction has not yet erupted this season, because Ronaldo threw himself into the arms of Real Madrid for the sake of "higher pursuit" (Ronaldo in this book transferred to Real Madrid a year in advance, this is to speed up the process of the novel, please don't confuse the book with reality, in fact, many transfers have been advanced a year since the beginning of this season, don't focus on these issues, hehe), and Rooney has naturally become the team's new tactical core, he scored 8 goals in the first 11 rounds of the league this season, Become the team's top scorer, and the scenery is unlimited for a while.
But the only thing that makes Rooney unhappy is that although he is the team's top player with an average of 0.72 goals per game, there is still one player in the Premier League who has suppressed him to the death, and that is the striker from Arsenal Descartes, who has averaged one goal per game so far (Descartes did not play in the game against Hull City, so he can only be counted as playing in 10 Premier League games), has scored 10 goals in the league, and he also has 6 assists, which is much better than Rooney.
Now the media is hyping that Descartes will become the new top name in the Premier League after Ronaldo's departure, and his status in England has gradually become dominant, which makes Rooney, who has great ambitions and was originally ready to do a big job after Ronaldo's departure, feel embarrassed?
Therefore, Rooney's biggest goal in this game is to score at least two goals, not only to lead the team to beat Arsenal, but also to complete the comeback against him in the scorers' charts.
Whether it's a team or a player, there can only be one winner, Descartes, take it!
In addition to the slightly shabby combination of Almunia, Galla and Silvestri on the backline, their left and right wingers Sagna and Clichy are not inferior to Manchester United's two wings, and the midfield is under the leadership of Cesc Fabregas and Denilson, Nasri, Rosicky and others, steadily suppressing Manchester United.
This is the first season since Robin van Persie arrived at Arsenal who has played 11 league games without being on the injury list, and his performances have finally taken a few steps to stabilize after gaining regular playing time, and he has now scored six goals in the league and Champions League group stages, becoming the team's second top scorer and one of the two players that Arsene Wenger relied on most in the first half.
The other, of course, is Fabregas, the heart of their organization.
In fact, this season, in addition to Rooney's self-proclaimed battle for the top spot in the Premier League between him and Descartes, what the media is really hyping is the "Arsenal core" battle between Cesc Fabregas and Descartes, Descartes has been consistent and excellent since the start of the season, and his goals and assists are the most important reason why Arsenal have not fallen out in the title race so far, compared to Cesc Fabregas's performance is slightly inferior, his goals and assists have dropped compared to the same period in previous seasons. The media agreed that he was on the verge of losing power.
But no one will understand that Fabregas doesn't really care about this fact at all, the core means more responsibility, but he doesn't want to take on such a responsibility, at least, he doesn't want to take on such a responsibility at Arsenal, he has always had a good desire in his heart, that is, to return to Barcelona, and his childhood friends to fight for his beloved team, at Arsenal, he was technically supported by Wenger, but his heart has never been here.
Of course, he didn't know what Henry said to Descartes when he left, he just thought that Descartes was the same as himself, he was also a lion, and when the lion grew up, he needed to establish his throne in the group, and challenging the old king became the most convenient way for them to dominate the lion group.
Now, he is the old king, and Descartes is the young teacher who aspires to the throne.
He may have secretly laughed at himself, Descartes was bent on seizing his "throne", but he never imagined that he no longer wanted to sit on this throne, and if he wanted it, let him take it.
My home is never in this cold and damp place, and soon, soon, I will be home! (To be continued......)