Chapter 459: Arsenal's Despair

"It's really strange that Arsenal has such a clear advantage. Is this still the Arsenal I know?"

Seeing that it was Arsenal that was leading in the first half, and from the field it seemed that Arsenal was suppressing Manchester City, many fans who had just turned on the TV to watch the game were very surprised.

In their impression, Arsenal didn't seem to be that strong, right? Why did it suddenly become stronger? "Oh, I understand, it must be the law that they become stronger when they meet Manchester City!"

In recent times, Premier League teams, whether ordinary teams or wealthy teams, whenever they meet Manchester City on the field, they are like being injected with chicken blood and always perform beyond their normal level.

This phenomenon is called Manchester City Law by fans.

"Arsenal played really well in this game, especially Ozil. He played really well in the first half. If he can continue to perform like this throughout the whole game, he will definitely be the MVP after the game!"

On the sidelines, Wenger, like the fans, was satisfied with Ozil's performance in this game.

After Ozil joined Arsenal, he received mixed reviews from the outside world.

Some people criticized him for his soft style of play, fear of confrontation, and inability to adapt to the pace of Premier League games.

Some people praised him for his excellent skills and broad vision, and called him a well-deserved midfield master.

In fact, both evaluations are correct. Ozil does not like physical confrontation and is even somewhat afraid of it. Therefore, in Premier League games, he is often bullied by players from other teams, and sometimes even becomes a breakthrough for Arsenal.

However, his mental attributes and enterprising spirit have always been a problem. He always plays football in a slow style, never in a hurry or slow down. The expression on his face always looks like he has not woken up yet, and there is no change in his emotions.

This kind of person is obviously unable to serve as a team leader, nor can he be expected to stand up in times of adversity. He is more suitable to serve as a wingman for his teammates.

If he is paired with a very strong teammate such as Messi or Ronaldo, Ozil can provide very comfortable passes to his teammates and help these top shooters score more goals.

When Ozil first came to Arsenal, the Gunners' fans had high hopes for him, thinking he could become a core player like Fabregas and Van Persie.

But Ozil proved in just one season that he could not live up to the expectations of popular fans.

As the record signing in Arsenal's history, it is normal for the outside world to express disappointment in him when he fails to meet the fans' expectations.

Wenger was obviously aware of this problem. After determining that Ozil was unable to handle the team on his own, he reluctantly spent a huge amount of money to buy Barcelona winger Sanchez, which solved the problem.

Sanchez is very strong and is one of the top wingers in football.

But Sanchez has one bad point, he plays a little bit independently, and his cooperation with his teammates is not ideal. Arsenal's current passing and cutting cooperation still fails to achieve the effect envisioned by the professor.

Thinking of this, Wenger couldn't help but look at the man wearing Manchester City's 10-day blue jersey again.

How great would it be if he had chosen Arsenal instead of Manchester City?

This thought has appeared more than once. Every time Arsenal and Manchester City face off, Wenger seems to sigh in his heart.

He has missed so many excellent players in his life!

Ibrahimovic, Ronaldo, Messi and later Lin Quan, some of the strongest top stars in today's football, have almost all missed the chance to play for Arsenal.

It takes some skill to miss so many top superstars in a row!

However, this also indirectly shows that Wenger and his team have a very accurate eye for people.

It's just that for various reasons, they didn't firmly bring the person they liked to their team! In the first half, Arsenal attacked like a tide and Manchester City took a defensive position, but Guardiola did not let the opponent's midfield do whatever it wanted.

Under his arrangement, Kante targeted Ozil, the brain of Arsenal.

After being marked by Kante, Ozil could no longer observe the situation on the field and deliver accurate passes as he did before.

Under Kante's push, it became difficult for him to even protect the ball, and it became almost impossible for him to pass the ball forward.

Therefore, he could only pass the ball back to his teammates, allowing Ramsey or Cazorla to reorganize the game.

Ramsey and Cazorla's passing ability and overall view are indeed not as good as Ozil. After the ball is passed to them, it is difficult for them to make threatening passes like Ozil.

Moreover, due to their position, it was difficult for them to cooperate with Sanchez, which caused Arsenal's offensive threat to drop significantly.

On the sidelines, Wenger, who had a smile on his face as he admired Ozil's wonderful performance, immediately changed his expression when he saw Ozil unable to hold the ball under the opponent's pressure and was forced to pass it back.

Arsenal's style of play in the first half required them to pass the ball forward and constantly create threats to Manchester City's goal.

Once their offensive rhythm is interrupted, Manchester City's counterattack will probably come soon!

Sure enough, seeing that Arsenal's attack was contained, Manchester City's formation immediately began to move forward, with the two wingers moving to the wing forward positions and joining the midfield's stranglehold.

Seeing that their midfield was at a numerical disadvantage, Arsenal was forced to change its formation, and their wingers had to join in the chaos in the midfield.

Frequent physical contact and confrontation made the game rhythm of the two teams begin to move towards that of traditional Premier League teams!

Although Manchester City is not a team that likes to use physical confrontation very much, after all, they have better weapons to choose from.

But their opponent, Arsenal, is a team that is less adept at physical confrontation than them. In terms of the strength of the two teams' lineups, Manchester City is clearly better.

In this case, Guardiola naturally doesn't mind making full use of this advantage.

When the physical confrontation between the two teams became intense, Ozil's performance began to decline sharply, and he even gradually disappeared from the field.

On the contrary, Cazorla, who is short in stature and less than 1.7 meters tall, performed better than Ozil on the court. At least under the opponent's fierce fight, he was able to protect the ball and avoid losing possession all of a sudden and allowing the opponent to counterattack.

But it was not enough to just protect the ball. The inability to gain the upper hand in the midfield stalemate meant that their offense would be difficult to sustain.

This caused Arsenal's previous momentum to rapidly decline, and the enthusiasm they had previously shown seemed a little unsustainable at this time.

Affected by this, the dominance of the game began to gradually fall into Manchester City's control. Manchester City began to gain the upper hand in the midfield and gradually began to launch a counterattack.

"Sure enough, Arsenal is still the familiar Arsenal, it hasn't changed at all!"

Seeing the opponent being quickly beaten back to its original form and his own attack starting to gain momentum, Manchester City's assistant coach Blatter sighed.

If he is asked to choose a Premier League game to watch as a spectator, after excluding Manchester City, he will most likely choose to watch Arsenal's game.

The reason is simple. Arsenal's style of play is very gorgeous, and they can perform dazzling coordination in the attack, which is pleasing to the eye.

However, it is extremely difficult for Arsenal to play such a smooth combination.

Once Arsenal's tactics fail to work, their threat will drop sharply.

As the focus of this round of the Premier League, there must be a lot of people paying attention to this game.

After the game, this match will definitely be watched and studied repeatedly by coaches of many teams, and the method used by Guardiola to deal with Arsenal in this game will definitely be used by many teams.

There is absolutely no doubt about this. After Guardiola came up with the three-center-back tactic, almost overnight, all Premier League teams started to use the three-center-back system.

Of course, most people failed to achieve the desired result and soon abandoned this style of play after their efforts backfired, but there are still some who choose to stick with it, such as Klopp of Liverpool.

After trying it out, he found that this tactic was quite useful when attacking.

Guardiola's answer to this game was: increase the intensity for Arsenal and strangle their midfield.

This is the simplest and most practical method, and almost all Premier League teams can replicate it. After all, most Premier League teams have strong lineups, and some even rely on physical confrontation and hand-to-hand combat to survive, such as the Hammers West Ham United.

Seeing that the team was gradually falling into a disadvantage, Wenger on the sidelines was secretly anxious, but he couldn't think of any good solution for a while.

Wenger's on-the-spot command and adjustment abilities have never been strong, and his personality is not decisive enough. He cannot be as decisive as some coaches who, when they see that the situation is not right, will immediately make substitutions no matter how many minutes the game has gone on, even if it has just started for a few minutes, risking offending the players.

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Wenger plans to wait until the half-time break to make adjustments, and then decide whether to make substitutions or change tactics.

I have to say that the Arsenal players playing at home still worked very hard and fought very hard.

Although they were at a disadvantage in physical confrontation, they fought tenaciously with Manchester City in the midfield.

There was not much time left in the first half, and the score remained 1:0 until the end of the first half.

Wenger on the sidelines finally breathed a sigh of relief, finally managing to hold on.

It seems that adjustments must be made during the half-time break. Otherwise, if the team continues to play at the same pace as at the end of the first half, Manchester City will probably equalize the score soon.

Wenger planned to adjust the team's tactics and lineup. Coincidentally, Guardiola also planned to do so.

"Forget about that goal, you performed very well in the first half, but you can do better!"

Guardiola is a person who pursues excellence. He always wants to do something to the extreme, so it is very difficult for him to praise the players, except for Lin Quan.

The players thought they would be criticized when they returned to the locker room, but unexpectedly, Guardiola not only did not criticize them, but praised them instead.

This made many players feel very excited. They couldn't help but look up at the head coach and listen carefully to his tactical arrangements.

The fifteen minutes passed quickly and the second half of the game began.

Both teams made personnel adjustments. Arsenal replaced midfielder Campbell with defender Gibbs in order to strengthen their defense.

The opposite happened for Manchester City, they replaced a defender with a midfielder.

Just from the substitution choices of the two teams, it can be seen who will attack and who will defend in the second half.

"No way, Arsenal only performed well in the first half of the game?"

"Didn't Arsenal play well in the first half? Why make such an adjustment?"

"Haha, the professor is scared!"

The fans were very surprised at the substitution choices of both teams. Arsenal played so actively in the first half, but they replaced offensive players with defensive players at the beginning of the second half, giving people the feeling that they had to make a 180-degree adjustment.

Isn't this change too abrupt and too radical?

"Arsenal is now in the lead, so it's not wrong to be conservative. As long as we can hold on to this score and win in the end, that's all!"

"Yes, the reason why the tactics in the first half were so effective was because the players ran at full speed, but the players are not made of iron and it is impossible for them to run like that for the entire game."

Not everyone is criticizing Wenger's move. Some calmer and more rational fans believe that Wenger's choice is very pragmatic.

Arsenal are not Liverpool, they cannot run like crazy throughout the game like Liverpool.

This tactic can have an unexpected effect if used occasionally, but it is obviously unrealistic to use it all the time.

If they did not change their tactics proactively, their players would have run out of energy and unable to run after seventy minutes, and Manchester City would have easily defeated them.

"Can you really hold it?"

"Yeah, we're only leading by one goal, the advantage is too small!"

Many Gunners fans thought of the previous game against Bayern at home, where they were leading by two goals but were tragically reversed by Bayern.

Now they are facing Manchester City, which is as strong as Bayern and even stronger than Bayern. Many Gunners fans are worried that what happened before will happen again.

What you fear will come to you. In the 56th minute of the second half, Manchester City launched an offensive climax and formed an siege on Arsenal's goal.

Lin Quan, Son Heung-min, De Bruyne, Kroos and others shot in succession, making Arsenal's goal in a panic and making countless Gunners fans feel heartbroken.

Although thanks to Cech's heroic performance, Arsenal survived Manchester City's attack this time.

But defending for too long will lead to failure. After they lost control of the midfield, they were unable to stop Manchester City's attack.

In the 67th minute of the second half, De Bruyne and Lin Quan formed a wall pass, Lin Quan faked a shot and made a real pass to Aguero in the penalty area.

Aguero did not waste the opportunity created by his teammates and calmly shot the ball into the goal.

The score became 1:1. The Emirates Stadium fell into silence at this moment.

The most desperate thing in the world is to see hope and then watch it shattered.

And at this moment, Gunners fans are experiencing this.

(End of this chapter)