The club also knew that the only way to keep Henry, who was already at his peak, was for the club to achieve good results in this league. However, to achieve these results, everyone needed to maintain their previous confidence and unity.
Without these, the team would fall into a vicious cycle, not only resulting in a poor season but also becoming worse in the next.
...
Finally, the long-awaited match was about to begin.
Coincidentally, Cao Baming returned to the club at this very moment. The players welcomed him while also paying close attention to the match.
The game had been going on for a minute and a half. Looking at the score, it was still 0:0, which was fine. However, after only watching for a dozen seconds, Cao Baming noticed something was wrong. The familiar faces of Arsenal on the field were playing so poorly that the word "terrible" could describe their performance.
It was far from their usual selves during club training. And this was a formal match.
Cao Baming had already anticipated that Arsenal would not have a good outcome in this match.
As expected, in the 21st minute of the game, Arsenal made a mistake in their own half, directly gifting Newcastle United an easy goal.
Dan Zhuma seized the opportunity without hesitation, accepted the gift, and calmly unleashed a powerful shot into the net.
The deadlock was broken. After over twenty minutes of stalemate, the fans were almost losing patience.
With this conceded goal, Arsenal fell into despair. Unlike their previous persistent efforts, they now seemed like a scattered mess, having lost their objective.
There was no hope of scoring anymore; everyone lowered their expectations. But when the game reached the 31st minute, it was Dan Zhuma again. This time, from the wing, a single dribble sent two defenders to the ground, and he then fired a shot into an empty net!
Two-nil! The fans could finally vent their anger.
Arsenal had been completely overwhelmed, utterly dominated!
The Newcastle United fans were ecstatic at this moment. Seeing their team so easily overpower a strong team like Arsenal felt incredibly satisfying.
By the end of the first half, after 45 minutes of regular time plus three minutes of injury time, Arsenal was trailing Newcastle United 0:2.
The Yellow Submarine was a Yellow Nuclear Submarine today! And Dan Zhuma was the most prominent warhead, battering the dilapidated Arsenal mercilessly.
"This is so satisfying, this is what happens when you drive Messi away, serves you right!!"
"Now you should understand who Arsenal's real trump card was before, even Henry couldn't carry this team!"
"Exactly, even Henry is useless. The team still needs geniuses like Messi and Cao Baming. Only they can lead this bunch of losers!"
Many fans discussed Henry's name online, but most of them didn't notice that Arsenal had not fielded Henry in the first half.
Because the injury sustained during training had not fully healed, Arteta had kept a strategic option in hand, letting him rest on the bench for caution.
Having Henry on the field or not made a significant difference for Arsenal. Arteta, unlike those mindless fans, still maintained his rationality.
But at this moment, Henry was the team's greatest asset. They could not afford to risk him sustaining a more serious injury in this match. If he were to be sidelined for the season, the team would be truly finished.
During the halftime break, Cao Baming's teammates from other clubs also started discussing.
However, they were unsure whether Cao Baming hoped for their team to win or lose, so they didn't know how to strike up a conversation, fearing they might say the wrong thing.
But in reality, when Cao Baming saw Arteta placing Henry on the bench, he had already foreseen the outcome. Arsenal was definitely going to be brutally defeated in this match. The only suspense was how bad the defeat would be.
Henry returned to the locker room and looked at the dejected players, feeling a surge of anger.
Watching their performance on the field was infuriating, but sitting on the sidelines, he could do nothing. This feeling of powerlessness!
"It's just a zero-two score, it feels like the sky is falling! Haven't you experienced even bigger defeats before?"
...
There was nothing others could do; the situation was as it was, unless a miracle happened.
When the second half began and they returned to the pitch, the players noticed that many spectators had already left.
Many fans couldn't bear to watch and chose to leave early. As for any suspense or hope remaining in the match, they dared not contemplate further.
Cao Baming and those around him felt the same way. It seemed Arsenal was truly done for, a conclusion that could almost be drawn now.
Without paying further attention to the ongoing match, the players returned to the training field. For them, the task was equally arduous. In two to three days, they would be stepping onto the pitch to face Chelsea, a formidable opponent in the Premier League.
The coach naturally hoped they would seize every minute to dedicate to training.
Although it was impossible to perfectly integrate the team in such a short week, every minute of extra training yielded some benefit.
Their coordination and understanding were improving visibly, and this was the period of fastest progress.
Once on the field, as the ball was passed between players, everyone had forgotten about the ongoing match and no longer thought about it.
Cooper supervised their training from the sidelines. As usual, they started with basic drills, then gradually moved to team coordination, and finally to small-scale tactical plays.
Not long after, training entered a rest period, and it was at this moment that Cao Baming remembered the ongoing match.
More than forty minutes had passed now. He was curious about the score.
At this moment, Cao Baming imagined that Arsenal had been utterly demolished, perhaps even worse than West Ham United on the previous day.
However, in the next second, a strange feeling told him that perhaps his assumption was wrong!
The match was still continuing and had reached its final moments.