Harbinger Of Glory

Elsewhere, the atmosphere at Arsenal’s training ground was already different.

Colney had been busy since the morning as Arsenal had played their match a day before Wigan, meaning their schedule had been slightly ahead.

Their players had already been given their recovery time, and now most of the squad was back at the training ground.

Inside his office, Mikel Arteta was seated at his desk with several clips playing across his monitor when a knock came at the door.

"Come in," he said, and a second later, Carlos Cuesta entered.

The assistant coach trudged forward before settling in the chair right ahead of Arteta.

"Everyone’s in," he said, to which Arteta nodded.

"Good."

Cuesta remained seated afterwards before Arteta closed the file in front of him.

"Let them get started with some light gym work."

Cuesta nodded.

"Okay."

Arteta then picked up another sheet from his desk.

Then, almost casually, he looked up again.

"How is he?"

Hearing that, Cuesta knew exactly who he meant.

"He looks good."

Arteta nodded slowly.

"Good," he said and leaned back slightly in his chair.

"He’s going to be key for us against Wigan."

Cuesta nodded again and then got to his feet.

"I’ll let you know when they’re done."

"Ok. Then you tell them to meet me in the video room," Arteta replied.

"Got it."

Cuesta turned and left afterwards, closing the door quietly behind him while Arteta remained still for a moment before turning back toward his monitor.

He pressed play, and the footage resumed, showing Wigan facing a few Premier League and Championship teams’ attempts at playing a low block.

Arteta watched the sequence develop and, just like a trend he’d been noticing, the ball moved from the left side into midfield where Leo received it.

He drew a player toward him before shifting the ball away as Wigan’s attack continued.

Then Reyes appeared, and as he’d seen previously, Leo found him.

Arteta rewound and watched it again before spotting the same pattern in another sequence.

Leo received between the lines.

The opposition compressed around him, then Reyes eventually became the outlet.

Arteta paused the footage after a while and then leaned closer to the screen.

His eyes stayed on Leo, then slowly, he tapped the latter’s form on the screen and then nodded.

"We just need someone to occupy you."

He looked at the frozen image for another second, and then he couldn’t help but smile to himself because the more he watched, the clearer it became.

When Wigan faced a compact defence, Leo was often the player everything revolved around.

And when teams successfully crowded him, Reyes was frequently the one who received the ball next.

Arteta leaned back, feeling a bit of euphoria after finding something so glaring, but something that most teams glossed over, because with him, he had found something worth testing.

Following this, the days passed quickly.

Tuesday became Wednesday.

Wednesday became Thursday.

And with every passing day, the meeting between first and second place drew closer.

For Arsenal, the objective was straightforward.

Close the gap.

Nine points separated them from Wigan, and while the season was still young, nobody at the club wanted that distance to become any larger.

A few months earlier, the idea of Arsenal travelling into a game against Wigan as the team chasing the leaders would have sounded ridiculous.

Wigan had only just returned to the Premier League, and Arsenal were supposed to be competing near the top.

Yet here they were.

Fourteen matches into the season, Wigan had won every single one.

Arsenal had dropped points along the way, but they remained firmly in the title conversation.

Now they were heading into a match where beating the newly promoted side would cut the gap to six points.

That was the simple objective.

The difficult part was everything that came with it.

Pundits had spent the week trying to predict the outcome, but even the most confident analysts were choosing their words carefully.

On paper, Arsenal had the stronger squad.

They had more experience at this level and had spent years competing for major honours.

But Wigan had already made most of those arguments irrelevant.

They had beaten almost everyone put in front of them.

Their football had become increasingly difficult to dismiss as luck, momentum or an early-season run.

And that left the analysts with an uncomfortable question.

What exactly was Arsenal supposed to do differently?

Nobody wanted to say Wigan would win and again, nobody wanted to say Arsenal would win either.

Because if everything that had happened so far was considered, Wigan shouldn’t have been sitting nine points clear at the top.

But they were.

And that meant Arsenal had to deal with them accordingly.

By Friday, the fever of the affair began to rise.

It was near, and most football enthusiasts, no matter what club they supported, couldn’t help but talk about what could be.

The first game of the treacherous five-game stretch was now only days away.

At Christopher Park, Wigan’s preparations had become more focused.

A small group of supporters had gathered beyond the training area, watching through the barriers as the players went through their drills.

Some called out names whenever a player came close, but most simply looked keen on absorbing as much of what their players were showing.

The atmosphere was relaxed from a distance, but the intensity on the pitch was different.

Dawson stood near the edge of the training area with his hands resting against his hips, and he watched as the ball was played toward Leo from the right.

He moved underneath it and brought his chest forward, and even before the ball could drop, Leo had taken a scan.

3 obstructions stood between him and his nearest teammate, but why go for silver if you can go for gold?

The moment the ball came down, Leo opened his body and immediately sent the ball spinning wildly through the lines before finding Fletcher.

The crowd who’d been allowed to watch gasped as the striker adjusted himself and got his chest to the ball.

But before it could drop into his path, a pair of gloves appeared cleanly.

Ben Amos stepped forward and plucked it cleanly from the air right as Fletcher had been waiting on it to volley the ball across.

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