Chapter 1 The Approaching Match

As the FA Cup match drew closer, the focus of the English media shifted to their domestic cup competition.

More and more FA Cup news filled newspapers, television, radio, and the internet.

Especially the high-profile clash between Liverpool and Arsenal, which became the focus of everyone's attention.

But contrary to everyone's expectations, the atmosphere of a clash between two strong teams did not materialize.

Wenger appeared very low-key, almost as if he had surrendered in advance.

In his series of pre-match statements, he implied to everyone that Arsenal had no chance of winning, that Liverpool was too strong.

"...We have played against them many times, and we have tried almost every method. Our best result was to give up attacking and defend with all our might, holding them to a draw at home. This method works in the league, but it is not suitable for cup competitions. Because we don't need to win, and you can't win a game without scoring..."

Wenger spread his hands and pouted, expressing his helplessness during an interview with reporters.

He said this based on facts, as Arsenal had fought Liverpool many times and indeed had not gained any advantage... Except for one draw, they had lost every other game.

Neither attacking nor defending worked.

But his words were not accepted by everyone, because the Arsenal that couldn't gain an advantage before was facing Liverpool's first team. Now, in the League Cup and FA Cup, they would be facing Liverpool's reserves.

The strength difference between the first team and the reserves was still significant. If Arsenal played their main team and didn't underestimate their opponents, they could still defeat the reserve team with Chen Hero...

So they had no idea why Wenger was so dispirited, and as the manager of Arsenal, was it really okay to say such morale-dampening words before the game?

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Inside Arsenal, there was indeed some dissatisfaction and disappointment with Wenger's statement.

They had to remember that their opponents were not the first team, but the reserves... No matter how strong Liverpool's reserves were, they were still just reserves. To surrender to such a team in front of so many people was really embarrassing for many Arsenal players—we are Arsenal! We were the team that won the league championship with an undefeated season, how can we bow our heads to a reserve team!

Even if they won the FA Cup last season, that reserve team had almost nothing to do with the current one.

It was no exaggeration to say that this reserve team was just a bunch of rookies!

At the same time, they couldn't understand why the boss suddenly softened. He had prepared so carefully for so long, but now that the game was just around the corner, he softened... This didn't make sense!

Wenger never explained, which made everyone even more confused.

They had originally planned to fight Liverpool, after all, this was the FA Cup, which was different from the League Cup.

Although the FA Cup was becoming increasingly dispensable these days, it still held a very important place in the hearts of English fans. After all, this was the oldest modern football competition in the world, and that alone was enough for English fans to be proud of.

Before the creation of the Premier League, the First Division League was simply unable to compete with the FA Cup. Even in the early years of the Champions League, English teams didn't give a damn about UEFA, believing that the Champions League was not as good as their FA Cup. At that time, the FA Cup was the highest honor in English football. A team that had never won a league title could still be a powerhouse if they could win several FA Cup titles.

Like Wimbledon, a team that had never won a top-flight league title and had only won one FA Cup title, their fans were proud of it for a long time.

This shows the status of the FA Cup title in the hearts of English teams and fans in the early years.

Now that status is not as good as before, but its prestige remains.

Many people still regard lifting the FA Cup as a supreme honor.

An extreme situation like Liverpool sending out their reserves was rarely done even by giants like Manchester United.

For Arsenal's players, the reason they wanted to fight in the FA Cup was that besides the different meaning of this cup, there was also a very realistic consideration—in the league, they basically had no hope of winning the championship, Liverpool was now leading all the way, and it would be too difficult to catch up.

If they wanted to win a championship this season, the FA Cup was a good choice. The League Cup was also good, but the FA Cup came first, so naturally they would fight for the FA Cup first.

They firmly believed that as long as they didn't underestimate their opponents, they wouldn't encounter any difficulties all the way to the final after defeating Liverpool's reserves. In other words, as long as they beat Liverpool, they would have a great chance of winning the championship.

Who would have thought that the boss would pour a bucket of cold water over their heads.

It was really morale-dampening...

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In the past few days of training, Wenger saw the problems reflected in the team. The players seemed not to be putting their hearts into training, and were somewhat absent-minded... In short, their morale was low.

He naturally knew what caused this.

In the past few days, the outside media had been saying that he was being overly cautious and had become obsequious.

Some media even complained for Arsenal, believing that Arsenal, which had once been so proud, had fallen to this point, and had to resort to showing weakness to the enemy.

They all thought that Wenger had gone too far and had lost Arsenal's face.

Looking at those absent-minded players, he sighed in his heart—it seemed that his players thought so too.

He also knew that if he hadn't been coaching this team for more than ten years, and even been a director of the club, these players would have probably rebelled long ago.

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After training, as usual, it was the coach's speech time. Usually, he would talk about the problems and progress of everyone in training, point out the bad things, and praise the good things, so that the players would have motivation and a desire to improve.

Neither pure criticism nor praise would work.

But today, Wenger didn't intend to criticize them, nor did he intend to praise them. He didn't even intend to talk about the training.

He wanted to tell everyone something else, to answer their doubts. If this problem was not resolved, he knew that the subsequent preparations would not be able to continue.

"I know you are doubting what I said. You may think that I am being too polite to a reserve team, even if it is Liverpool's reserve team... I also know that you must think that as long as you don't underestimate your opponents, it is not too difficult to defeat a reserve team in the game."

A group of players looked at each other. They were really told what they were thinking by Wenger!

When they thought that even what they were thinking was known by the boss, they dared not be dissatisfied... They just lowered their heads and drooped their eyelids, using this way to silently express their attitude.

How could Wenger not know what they were doing, but he did not fly into a rage, but continued to say, "But what I want to say now is that you are already underestimating your opponents. You have already unconsciously looked down on your opponents. What about the reserve team? Are our own reserve teams weak? I never think that Arsenal's reserve team is a pushover, so Liverpool people will not think that their reserve team is a weakling to be slaughtered. That's right, they have replaced a batch of players, these are almost all new players, but you must not forget that many of these players are drawn from the under-18 youth team, they have been playing in the youth team for many years, and their cooperation is impeccable. What they lack is only reserve team experience. Don't underestimate this team. In the FA Cup semi-final last season, Tottenham underestimated them, what was the result? In the FA Cup final last season, Chelsea also underestimated them, what was the result?"

His words made everyone still silent, but some people were still unconvinced, because they believed that they were not incompetent Tottenham, let alone Chelsea.

Tottenham and Chelsea were able to lose to that team, it didn't mean that they would lose, not to mention that the difference between these two teams was still very obvious. The boss was right on one point, the biggest difference between the current Liverpool reserve team and the previous reserve team was experience. But this was also the most fatal thing, experience could not be made up for by half a season of hard training. So this team was destined to be inferior to the reserve team of last season.

Since this is the case, why should we be so cautious?

Yes, we are underestimating our opponents, but we can still defeat this reserve team even if we underestimate them!

A team that relies entirely on one person is simply a disgrace to football. These reserve team players are simply lying on Chen Hero's body and sucking his blood, taking advantage of his glory. Waiting for Chen Hero to lead the team into the final, and then jumping down to enjoy the final championship results.

Why should we treat such a team with caution?

With Wenger's vision, how could he not see what these players were thinking?

He suddenly thought of a key thing, and then his eyes lit up.

The things that were bothering him before were suddenly solved.

He said with a straight face, "What? Don't believe me? Then let's use the League Cup that is about to start to do an experiment, how about that?"

As soon as he said this, everyone looked up in surprise, not understanding why the coach would suddenly say this.

Wenger looked at the group of surprised players, his face still very serious and very serious: "I'm serious, not joking. In the next game, you play according to your ideas. If you can defeat the reserve team that you think is not worth mentioning, then I will also play according to your ideas in the FA Cup game, how about that? But if you don't win the game, then you have to listen to me in the FA Cup game. If you want to prove that I am wrong, there is no result more powerful than the actual results. Use your performance to convince me and tell me that I am wrong."

A group of players looked at each other, and for a while they were a little dumbfounded.