Chapter 689 - 129: A Flying Start! Super Scorer! Arsenal’s Number One Tough Guy! Wenger: "Wang Shuo, You’re Just Too Good!

That morning, on the training ground at Colney, the players were engaged in an intense scrimmage.

The ball zipped back and forth through the crowd of players, and the air was filled with a constant stream of tense shouts.

Every time a spectacular goal was scored, a cheer would erupt from everyone present.

Even head coach Wenger, standing on the sidelines, would join in the applause.

"Great goal, Wang!"

Anyone could tell that Wenger had been in a very good mood lately.

And it was only getting better.

A good mood is contagious, and the two assistant coaches standing on either side of Wenger, Boro Primorac and Pat Rice, were in high spirits as well.

The two white-haired old men and the bald man, talking and laughing on the sidelines, made for a rather charming sight.

"Ever since that whole mess with Alexandre Song blew over, I’ve just felt... how should I put it? Completely at ease, like a weight has been lifted. It feels like everything is finally going our way."

"Do you two know what I mean?"

Wenger’s words made his assistants on either side of him laugh.

"Don’t laugh, I’m serious. Look, even the weather this July has been perfect for training. It hasn’t even rained."

Primorac and Pat Rice exchanged a look and, once again, laughed in unison.

They had certainly felt it too.

The United Kingdom is a rainy country, but strangely enough, it hadn’t rained at all this July. Moreover, the peak midday temperature had consistently stayed below 20 degrees Celsius, which was perfect for training.

And ever since Sad Fossett came to Arsenal, the training workload for the three of them had been lightened considerably.

The American’s various reforms to Arsenal’s training methods had received Wenger’s full support and were being implemented in an orderly fashion.

But the most important thing was the locker room.

For the past few years, Arsenal had been continuously selling off players, and the locker room had been in a constant state of anxiety, never truly stable.

This summer, Wang Shuo had arrived and been appointed team captain by Wenger.

Everyone thought this would surely stir up another controversy, one that might even last for quite a while.

Especially after what happened with Alexandre Song.

But who would have thought that Wang Shuo would act so swiftly? Not only was he unaffected by the turmoil, but he actually used the incident with Alexandre Song to implement a carrot-and-stick approach, seizing control of the locker room with decisive action.

Before announcing the new locker room regulations, Wang Shuo had discussed them with Wenger, Primorac, and Pat Rice.

They all felt the rules would be very difficult to implement.

They were too complicated and far too strict.

But who could have guessed? Wang Shuo called a meeting and pushed them through anyway.

For the first week or so, people were getting fined almost every day, and the locker room was filled with groans of dismay.

A few players even went to Wenger to complain.

But Wang Shuo was unmoved.

Now, three weeks later, everything was surprisingly starting to fall into place.

The players stopped complaining and gradually adapted to the new management rules.

After Primorac spoke with some of the players in the locker room, he found that quite a few of them even felt that the new system was a good thing.

Wang Shuo didn’t just rely on an iron fist; he also recently began focusing on cultivating the locker room’s atmosphere.

For example, he started organizing sharing sessions where players could discuss their training insights, takeaways from matches, and even just how they were feeling. The players gradually started to open up to each other, even roasting one another.

As early as the second week, Wang Shuo had established a "Tough Guy Award" in the locker room.

As the name implied, every week the team would vote to recognize and reward the player who was unanimously considered the hardest worker.

And to everyone’s surprise, Alexandre Song, the very player Wang Shuo had fined two weeks’ salary, won the award for two consecutive weeks.

It got to the point where his teammates would joke, "He’s just trying to win back the salary he was fined!"

However, new signings like Matuidi and Arteta were also putting in an exceptional amount of effort.

And as more and more players started to compete fiercely with one another, the result was the scene that Wenger was witnessing on the pitch right at this moment.

The players on the field were all completely focused.

Additionally, Wang Shuo had paid out of his own pocket to completely upgrade the computers and game consoles in the players’ lounge.

He even organized gaming tournaments within the team. The prizes weren’t anything special—it was all about the glory!

The Arsenal squad was mostly made up of young players, and they were all ecstatic.

They would give their all in every training session, then head to the lounge for another battle, competing with relish.

With the players training so hard, the team’s performance on the pitch was also impressive.

The first pre-season friendly was against Barnet, a regular fixture for Arsenal.

The Gunners won the away match 4-0.

Arsenal had started their training camp on the 4th, followed by summer fitness training, and played the friendly on the 13th.

At that time, none of the players were in top form.

But the spirit they showed on the pitch was completely different from the past.

On the 16th, in an away match against Championship side Portsmouth, the team only managed to score in the 62nd minute, thanks to a goal from Walcott.

The assist came from Wang Shuo.

The match ended in a 1-0 victory.

Then on the 19th, still on the road, they challenged another Championship team, Southampton, and the match ended in a 2-2 draw.

Both of the goals they conceded were linked to the young Kieran Gibbs.

But after the match, Wang Shuo made a point to speak with the media, stating that no single person was to blame for the mistakes.

"Defense is everyone’s responsibility, including mine!"

"We’ll review what happened, analyze it carefully, and keep improving!"

Back in the locker room, Wang Shuo maintained the same attitude.