Chapter 696 - 130: God of Slaughter! Consecutive Bloody Battles! Targeting Arsenal! Wenger Loses His Cool Again! 4 Ovations at the Emirates Stadium

After moving from Dortmund to Arsenal, the biggest change Wang Shuo experienced was that the club had money.

The preseason matches had mostly been around London or in places like Cologne, Germany, so the difference hadn’t been particularly noticeable.

But as the new season began and everything fell into place, the difference became clear.

In Germany, Dortmund almost always took a coach for away games.

Even for Champions League away games that required flying, they took commercial flights and had to accommodate the airline’s schedule.

But things were different at Arsenal.

The first match of the Premier League season was an away game against Newcastle. Since the Magpies are located in the far northeast of England, the team opted to travel by train. The journey took over three hours, so they left for the away city a day early.

Then came midweek, and the first leg of the Champions League qualifying playoff round: an away match against Italy’s Udinese.

The match was on August 17th, but Arsenal didn’t depart until the evening of August 16th, after their training session. They left from the Colney Training Base, traveled north to Luton Airport, and boarded a charter flight directly to the city of Udine.

The charter flight was provided by Arsenal’s sponsor, Emirates.

If this had been like the old days at Dortmund, they would have certainly had to fly to Milan first, then take a train or coach to Udine.

This was because Udine has a small airport, with most flights being domestic or from neighboring cities.

But with Arsenal’s charter, they went directly to the Ambassador Palace Hotel in the city center after landing at the airport in Udine.

The entire journey was comfortable, thoughtful, and incredibly convenient.

Udine was just a small city, not known for tourism, so the hotel facilities were rather ordinary.

For example, they only had standard rooms at around 100 euros each, and the beds in the twin rooms were very small.

When they got to the hotel, the club didn’t even wait for the players to complain; they immediately switched all the twin rooms to rooms with large beds, one for each player.

It felt amazing!

After a wonderful night’s sleep, Wang Shuo woke up early and headed to the gym.

With growing match experience, Wang Shuo had discovered that for evening games, he was actually in better form if he got up in the morning for a personal workout session in the gym.

As the team captain and its star player, Wang Shuo’s biggest perk was the privilege of bringing two people with him when the team traveled.

One was his personal assistant, Shen Qinghe, and the other was a photographer from the new media team, responsible for capturing details from training sessions and matches.

However, this had been written into his contract from the beginning, and Wang Shuo paid for the vast majority of the expenses out of his own pocket.

And it wasn’t entirely without restrictions.

For example, neither of them was allowed to enter the locker room freely.

After getting to the gym, Wang Shuo posted a tweet: "11/12 Champions League season, here I come!"

’Check-in successful!’

The hotel’s gym facilities were mediocre. Wang Shuo spent some time on the elliptical machine and then ran on the treadmill for a while.

Shen Qinghe was with him the entire time and "sneakily" took a lot of photos of him.

Well, then again, it couldn’t really be called "sneaky," since the photographer was there too.

"Honestly, I think your physique is great as it is. Don’t be like Neven Subotic and get all big and burly."

Shen Qinghe stood to the side, her eyes practically glued to Wang Shuo as he sweated buckets on the treadmill. She found his muscular physique particularly mouth-watering.

"Wipe that drool off your face. Your eyes don’t have to light up every time you see a stud," Wang Shuo teased with an exaggerated laugh.

"Hmph, I’m not interested in what other guys look like. I just think your physique is amazing. You’ve got that whole ’alpha CEO’ vibe."

’Now that’s a nice ego boost!’

"Thanks for the compliment!"

Wang Shuo happily accepted the praise. "Still, I need to get a bit stronger. I’m still coming up a little short in physical battles."

Even though his [Foundation] had been upgraded to World-level, allowing him to generate power more effectively, he still felt he needed to get stronger.

To adapt to the Premier League, Subotic had bulked up quite a bit over the summer, focusing mainly on his upper body.

It couldn’t be helped.

The intense physicality of the Premier League puts enormous pressure on defenders.

At 1.93 meters tall, his large frame put him at a serious disadvantage against fast and agile forwards.

But Vermaelen compensated for that shortcoming.

As a result, the close-quarters battles and tests of strength fell to Subotic.

Just as Wang Shuo was working up a good sweat in the gym, Wenger arrived with Pat Rice and Boro Primorac.

Knowing they had business to discuss, Shen Qinghe gestured to her colleague, and the two of them left first.

"You need to keep a close eye on things during the match today."

Wenger instructed as he watched Wang Shuo stop to drink some water.

"I know. We’ve already discussed it."

Things had gotten ugly during Arsenal’s two matches against Barça in last season’s Champions League Round of 16, hadn’t they?

Wenger had criticized the head referee and UEFA after the match, earning him a one-match suspension.

He was therefore suspended for this away match against Udinese.

He was allowed in the locker room before the match but not at halftime. During the game itself, he could only sit in the stands with Primorac.

He could only return to the locker room 15 minutes after the final whistle.

According to the rules of the suspension, Wenger was definitely not allowed to use a cell phone or any similar device.

But Primorac could.

So, Wenger’s plan was to have Primorac stay in constant phone contact with Pat Rice, who would then pass on the manager’s instructions. This arrangement was bound to have issues.

After all, having the manager suspended and the assistant manager in charge was bound to affect everything from the efficiency of in-game adjustments to the players’ confidence.

More importantly, their opponent for this match was Udinese, whose manager was Guidolin.

Guidolin was a renowned figure in Italian football, nicknamed "the Magician." Not only was he a highly experienced manager, but he also excelled at assembling players to create strong, powerful squads.