From Arsenal to the Ball God

Koscielny smiled and added at this time, ”Nasri’s relationship with Ma’el was just average when he was in the France team, and he later suffered a lashing from Deschamps, almost becoming a cautionary tale.

”If he still wants to play for the France team, he must find a way to establish a good relationship with Ma’el on his own.

”This is undoubtedly the final straw for him. I really don’t know if he can handle it mentally.”

As mentioned before, in today’s European players, rivals remain rivals, whether between clubs or among players, this is always at the forefront.

They won’t lay these grievances aside just because they are from the same country or on the same national team.

Most of the time, they start to view issues from the standpoint of the club they serve, the club they feel emotionally attached to.

”Ha ha...” His words drew a burst of laughter in the meeting room, and many turned to sneak a glance at Wenger, only to find him expressionless.

”Bang!”

On the broadcast screen, Aguero received a pass from Yaya Toure outside the box and struck a low shot to pierce Chelsea’s goal once again.

Two to one!

Comeback!

Clincher!

”Tsk...” A sound of regret echoed as Arsenal’s players slightly shook their heads, feeling a bit disappointed.

Still keeping up.

Mancini’s Manchester City is really strong. Aguero seems to have a clincher quality about him. He’s scored such goals many times this season.

Not long after, the game ended with Aguero named Man of the Match, and Mancini, with his arm around him, praised him grandly before the media reporters.

At this point, Wenger turned off the TV screen, moved to the center.

He glanced around the team’s players, his voice deep yet penetrating, ”I hope everyone focuses on Manchester City’s tactics, the spirit and condition of their players, rather than their victories or losses.

”We are the leading team, have been leading for almost 5 months, sometimes being caught up a bit, sometimes pulling away from them.

”In such a case, we don’t need to focus on their successes or failures, we only need to focus on ourselves.

”This month, we have 3 Premier League opponents left, Sheffield United, Newcastle United, Liverpool. None are easy to beat, but I believe we can overcome them and keep our advantage!”

He clapped his hands, encouragingly, ”Come on, kids, once March passes, the championship might be decided.”

These words indeed shifted the players’ attention away from Manchester City’s doings to their own upcoming matches.

...

On March 13th, Arsenal hosted a match against Sheffield United.

Loan player Gilbert still couldn’t play. Sheffield United went with a weakened line-up, utilizing a 5-4-1 formation, playing tight defense, seemingly not yet shaken off the shadow of a 0-5 defeat last time.

Arsenal played with a full-strength team and changed their tactical setup from the previous two matches, deploying a 4-3-3 formation.

There was no other way, with tight defense, attempting a simple offense was impossible.

Besides, Wenger also replaced Arteta with the more creative trio of Rosicky, Alexander Song, and Ramsey in midfield.

This is a midfield composition lacking in toughness, but Arsenal didn’t plan to engage in a midfield battle; they pressed across the half-court, just pressing on play, basically giving the opponents no counterattack opportunity.

In fact, they would sometimes expose flaws deliberately, enticing Sheffield United to attack and then seizing transition opportunities.

”Boom, boom, boom...!”

”Boom, boom, boom...!”

The sound of passing kept ringing out as this match can’t be counted as a dull game.

Arsenal’s ball control was quite perfect, Ma’el often managed to create crossing and cut-ins for shots from the left.

But this surely counted as one of the most monotonous matches of the season for Arsenal... for some reason, Sheffield United was extremely united in defense, giving Arsenal virtually no absolute opportunities.

Only the two shots created by Ma’el himself and one dipping shot by Van Persie could be considered somewhat threatening, yet they still failed to break the opponent’s net.

In the Premier League, there is no weak team, every team can be in a different state at different times in the competition.

Even bottom-tier teams have a chance to win against the league’s top four, and the likelihood is much higher than in other leagues, something everyone understands.

Moreover, it’s not because the league has a high commercial value, high broadcasting shares, or lower-tier teams investing heavily that creates this situation.

It’s because of the inherently fierce competition compared to other leagues, the high probability of chance which gradually formed its high commercial value, high broadcast shares, substantial investments, and matches getting increasingly exciting in a positive loop.

La Liga now is a two-hero battle, Bundesliga is a contest between Dort and Bayern, Serie A is all unexciting counter-defending, Ligue 1 is somewhat weaker in competition level.

Only the Premier League, where any of the top six teams could win the championship, any of the teams below can unexpectedly crash into the relegation zone.

Championship battles and relegation fights are always filled with suspense, gripping, making fans unable to resist!

It’s hard to say what exactly is causing this, there might be many complicated factors, but nonetheless, such a situation has formed.

”Beep beep!”

In the 69th minute, seeing the team unable to score after successive attacks, Wenger replaced Kyle Walker with Walcott, who hadn’t started today, switching to a 3-3-4 aggressive attack.

minutes later, Sheffield United substituted striker Evans with defender Smith, going for an ultimate 6-4-0 tight defense.

”Boom!!”