Chapter 944: This year's Premier League is particularly cold
As December approached, a sudden cold wave hit the British Isles.
Far in north London, at the Colney training base, Wenger's mood was colder than the weather outside.
Sagna and Gibbs are injured!
This was discovered during today's training and the team doctor told him that the two players will miss the 14th round of the Premier League at the weekend.
This is telling Wenger that he will not have even one regular full-back in his away game against Manchester City.
Damn, how can we play like this? In the League Cup in the middle of the week, he did not play the traditional full-back because he wanted to defend steadily, but the result was good, and he still lost.
Now he has made up his mind. Since the defense is not good, I will fight Manchester City and Guardiola to the death.
Unexpectedly, all the full-backs were injured.
Holy shit! This is too bad, isn't it? Have you ever seen someone so unlucky?
Wenger wanted to go crazy and became very irritated.
Arsenal is now ranked seventh in the Premier League standings, only three points away from fourth-placed Newcastle, but this does not mean that Arsenal has a good chance. On the contrary, before Arsenal, ranked fifth and sixth are Chelsea and Liverpool respectively, and these two teams are also eyeing the top four.
According to Wenger's own guess, it is unlikely that Newcastle will maintain its top four ranking, but Tottenham Hotspur still has great hopes of holding on to the top four, while Manchester City and Manchester United, who are at the top, have performed relatively steadily, especially Manchester City, which has maintained an undefeated record so far.
In this case, if you want to break into the top four, you must produce real results.
In other words, Arsenal must try to snatch points from strong teams and take on tough challenges.
Against Manchester City, no matter from which angle you look at it, Arsenal has no reason to let go.
But how to deal with Manchester City?
Thinking of this, Wenger sighed helplessly.
He is proposing to the management, hoping to make appropriate signings during the winter break. Otherwise, given the team's current situation, the second half will be very difficult. If they lose the top four in the league, it will be a fatal thing for Arsenal.
There is a high probability that there will be some unexpected circumstances in Van Persie's contract extension.
You know, so far this season, Arsenal's offense is very dependent on Van Persie. After Van Persie, the team's second-highest scorer is the young tiger Walcott, but he has only scored four goals on all fronts.
This means that except for Van Persie, the other attackers of Arsenal collectively performed poorly.
If they cannot renew the contract with Van Persie, what will the Gunners do? Judging from the situation in recent seasons, if they want to improve their strength, they must recruit players.
It is impossible to maintain the top four position in the league without investing.
The Premier League today is no longer what it used to be.
Ferguson spoke out a few days ago about Manchester United's setback in the Champions League, believing that the reason why Manchester United performed poorly in the Champions League was because the internal friction in the Premier League was too serious. Manchester United consumed too much energy in the Premier League civil war, which led to its poor performance in the Champions League.
This may be an excuse, but it may also be the reason.
Wenger has basically made the contact, and Henry, who plays in the Major League Soccer, is also interested in returning to Arsenal to ease the Gunners' striker crisis, but the deal still needs the approval of the management.
Distant water cannot quench nearby fire. Whether Henry will join is still unknown, but Manchester City is imminent.
Heading north to Manchester, the Gunners must do their best to grab points in this battle.
Even a draw is acceptable.
At the very least, it stopped Manchester City's winning streak.
…………
…………
December 3rd afternoon, Etihad Stadium, Manchester.
In the 14th round of the Premier League, Manchester City faced Arsenal at home.
When referee Phil Dowd blew the whistle to start the game, Manchester City quickly passed the ball back to their defense.
Arsenal players, led by Van Persie, advanced at the fastest speed, directly approaching Manchester City's defense line, chasing them all the way, forcing Manchester City to pass the ball back to goalkeeper Courtois.
The Belgian goalkeeper kicked the ball directly to the front court near the penalty spot.
Su Dong grabbed the ball and headed it to his midfield teammate David Silva. As a result, Arsenal once again strangled the midfield, forcing Manchester City to pass the ball back again.
This time when the ball was passed to the right, Zabaleta kicked the ball to Arsenal's left winger Gervinho and it went out of the sideline, resulting in an out-of-bounds ball.
After Manchester City sent the ball out of bounds, just after crossing the center line, they were sniped by Arsenal again, but this time it was Sanchez who touched the ball last, so it became Arsenal's throw-in.
Players from both teams passed the ball back and forth in the midfield, fighting desperately for the ball.
Arsenal also took the initiative to attack Manchester City in a different way from the previous League Cup knockout match played at home. They did not retreat but were very aggressive instead. It was obvious that they had learned the lessons from the League Cup defeat.
The Gunners' midfield and frontcourt strangling tactics are a huge test of their physical energy consumption, while Manchester City is trying hard to slow down the pace of the game, incorporate the rhythm and state they are most familiar with, and slowly compete with Arsenal in consumption.
But Manchester City's passing and control of the ball were interrupted again and again by Arsenal, and finally the rhythm of the game was disrupted again and again.
This made the initial stages of the game not smooth and interesting.
It was not until the sixth minute that Hazard got the ball on the left side of the frontcourt and suddenly cut inside. When he tried to shake off the defender, he was fouled by Alexander Song, winning a direct free kick on the left side of the frontcourt for Manchester City.
Su Dong took the penalty kick himself and kicked a high-quality free kick, but due to the long distance and the angle to the left, his shot did not go down and was slightly higher than the crossbar.
Everyone at Arsenal was sweating, but Manchester City failed to score.
…
"Damn it, pay attention, Alexander, I told you not to foul in front of the penalty area!"
Wenger was furious on the sidelines.
The whole world knows how good Su Dong is at free kicks. A foul at the front of the penalty area is like giving him a chance to score, right? Although the position just now was a bit off, it was also very dangerous, wasn't it?
Alexander Song was also very depressed. He didn't want to commit a foul, but the short boy from Manchester City was too flexible and cunning, and he dribbled the ball well, forcing him to lose control of the ball when he kicked.
Arsenal players were somewhat shocked by this goal, but Wenger remained unchanged and insisted on letting his team press forward.
The League Cup match in the middle of the week further strengthened his determination to fight to the death with Manchester City.
The more you give in, the faster you die!
…
Arsenal seemed to have three midfielders, but their position was actually more like a 4-2-3-1 formation.
Needless to say about the first three, Ramsey's position is also relatively high, obviously to suppress Busquets.
Alexander Song and Arteta formed a double defensive midfielder in order to protect the defense line, cooperate with Ramsey, suppress Manchester City's midfield, and the defense line cooperated with the midfield and frontcourt to press forward as a whole.
This style of play is actually very risky, because everyone knows that Manchester City is very good at passing the ball and directly attacking behind.
Just two minutes after Su Dong's free kick, David Silva sent a through ball directly into the penalty area, allowing Su Dong to chase after him, but goalkeeper Szczesny decisively left the goal and fell to the ground to hug the ball at the penalty spot.
Two consecutive attacks showed Manchester City's momentum, and as the game progressed, after nearly ten minutes, Arsenal's pressing intensity was slightly weaker than at the beginning.
After all, they are all human beings, not machines, and they also need to rest and catch their breath.
But the scary thing about Manchester City is that when you are unable to maintain high-intensity pressure all the time and are unwilling to take the initiative to retreat and compress the defensive space, Manchester City will always be able to tear open your defense through the players' back-and-forth passes and penetration.
Just like this time in the tenth minute.
Pepe stopped the ball and moved forward, then quickly passed it to David Silva.
The Spaniard then passed it to Hazard.
After the Belgian winger retreated to stop the ball, he was unable to turn around and could only carry it back and pass it to Busquets.
But when Hazard retreated, he brought out Koscielny, who was playing as a right-back, causing Arsenal's right-side defense to be too pressed, and at this time Leighton Baines advanced at the fastest speed, close to the left sideline.
Busquets saw the opportunity and made a diagonal pass, accurately passing the ball through the midfield and directly to the line of Leighton Baines' forward advance. The English left-back stopped the ball and moved forward, then chased him, took a look at the middle, and made a diagonal pass with his left foot to the top of the penalty area to find Su Dong.
Su Dong was lying in ambush in the middle, and when he saw Leighton Baines moving forward, he also quickly moved forward. At the moment the England left-back passed the ball, he broke through the defense of Djokovic and Mertesacker with his speed and explosiveness, and rushed to the top of the arc in front of the penalty area, and stopped the ball into the penalty area with his right foot.
“Single Blade!!!”
There were continuous exclamations from Manchester City fans at the scene.
After Su Dong stopped the ball, he chased after it without slowing down. Without waiting for Szczesny to get in position, he quickly shot with his right foot.
The ball passed by Szczesny at an extremely fast speed and went straight into the bottom of Arsenal's goal.
One to zero!
"GOALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!"
"Tenth minute, tenth minute, Manchester City scores the first goal!!!"
"Su Dong received a cross from Leighton Baines on the left, then made a solo run and scored the first goal of the game for Manchester City!"
"It was still a typical Manchester City goal."
"The players in the midfield and backfield passed the ball back and forth, pulling away the defenders, and then Leighton Baines inserted himself and quickly hit Koscielny's back. Busquets' pass was also very accurate, and the subsequent cross was also very precise."
"Look at Su Dong's stop, it was very beautiful, the ball seemed to be glued to his feet, he completely obeyed the instructions given to him, after stopping in the penalty area, he kicked the ball directly and then shot."
"The entire scoring process is a reflection of Manchester City's football philosophy, and it is also a display of Su Dong's personal ability."
“Just this one stop of the ball is truly a feast for the eyes!”
While Su Dong was celebrating his goal, Manchester City fans in the stands were shouting his name frantically. The entire Etihad Stadium became so fanatical that it seemed as if even the air was on fire.
Only Wenger, who was sitting in front of the visiting team's coaching booth, involuntarily tightened his suit.
Damn, it's colder in Manchester than in London!
(End of this chapter)
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