Luxurious Stats, Just Lacking a Headbutt!

Wenger knew full well that the media wouldn't buy his act.

He didn't even believe himself that they could win the title this season.

But he had to make a statement.

Because Arsenal fans worldwide wouldn't want to see their beloved club lack the ambition to compete for the championship.

If the Arsenal players saw their boss had no hope for the season, why would they bother fighting?

Since the boss didn't hold out hope, why should a bunch of grunts kicking a ball overthink it?

Just do your own job.

If things didn't work out at Arsenal, they could always sign a good contract elsewhere.

Players, after all, were just highly paid laborers...

Make the most of your youth while you can still play, and rake in the cash—that's the real deal!

Only then could they secure a worry-free life after retirement.

That was the mindset of the vast majority of professional footballers worldwide.

Even at a top club like Arsenal, plenty of players thought the same way!

Wenger had been coaching for years; he knew exactly what was on his players' minds.

So he had to set the tone.

Only then could he push the squad to train hard and not slack off.

That day, news of Arsenal's 9-0 demolition of Blackpool spread across England.

Li Yufei's first career hat-trick was repeatedly mentioned by the media.

<The Times: Arsenal thrash Blackpool 9-0 at home, Walcott and Frye both net hat-tricks!>

<The Telegraph: On fire! Arsenal crush Blackpool 9-0, Wenger says anything short of the title this season is failure!>

<Daily Mail: Arsenal prodigy Frye Adams scores first career hat-trick in just his second league game, bright future ahead!>

<The Sun: Rumors swirl that American country pop star Taylor Swift's new album may be linked to Arsenal star Frye>

Though the opponent was just a promoted side, the tag of a first career hat-trick was still enough to grab attention!

Many fans who remembered Li Yufei started browsing related content.

Li Yufei's Twitter followers had jumped from 200,000 at his debut to 500,000.

Tens of thousands of people followed his account every day on average.

Every time he saw his follower count climb, Li Yufei couldn't help but think:

"See, official matches are where the exposure's at!"

"Just two league games in, and the follower growth already beats my total before."

"Keep pushing!!!"

Cheering himself on internally, Li Yufei still felt a twinge of regret.

Because the system hadn't given him any reward!

Maybe it was because the opponent was too weak.

Even with his first career hat-trick, the system didn't react at all.

After double-checking that his first official hat-trick got no response from the system, Li Yufei had no choice but to give up!

This match made it clear: the system was very picky about opponents.

If the opponent was too trashy, even a first career hat-trick

wouldn't earn a single point.

"Cheapskate, damn cheapskate..." muttering under his breath, Li Yufei checked his system points.

He still had 300 Intermediate Soft Rice Points and 100 Advanced Soft Rice Points.

Those were the rewards from his debut match against Liverpool.

He hadn't used them then because he hadn't decided which stats to boost.

Glancing at his attribute values, Li Yufei decided to upgrade Dribbling and Shooting first.

These two stats were too crucial for a forward.

Same as last time, Li Yufei converted 300 Intermediate Soft Rice Points into 3 attribute points, adding 2 to Dribbling and 1 to Shooting.

[Dribbling] went from 87 to 89, and [Shooting] from 84 to 85.

As for the Advanced Soft Rice Points, he could only put them into [Explosion].

The explosive attribute also climbed from 94 to 95.

The accompanying [Jumping] ability value also rose from 86 to 87.

Li Yufei's various attributes now stood at the following values:

[Physical Data: Speed 99, Acceleration 99, Explosiveness 95, Strength 72, Jumping 87, Hang Time 75, Stamina 70, Balance 80, Agility 78, Injury Resistance 99]

[Technical Data: Shooting 85, Dribbling 89, Ball Control 81, Short Pass 82, Long Pass 50, Crossing 65, Long Shot 70, Header 55, Shot Power 75, Set Pieces 60]

[Other Data: Mentality 80, Football IQ 75, Poaching 75, Vision 63, Anticipation 60, Creativity 72, Aggression 75, Off-the-Ball Movement 60, Tackling 40, Interceptions 25, Sliding Tackle 20, Goalkeeping 10]

Seeing his stats, Li Yufei couldn't help but nod in satisfaction.

As a striker now, aside from his header being a bit lacking, everything else was decent or above.

His strength was a little weak, but Li Yufei could improve that through training.

After all, strength wasn't directly tied to football talent.

If Li Yufei bulked up, his strength cap definitely wouldn't stop at 75—80+ wouldn't be an issue.

But considering that gaining weight would inevitably affect his Ball Feeling, Li Yufei wasn't foolish enough to bulk up.

Even with the system's guarantee, he wouldn't suddenly forget how to play after gaining weight.

But to say there would be no impact at all—that was impossible.

At the very least, Li Yufei would need time to adapt to his new weight.

During that adaptation period, his on-field performance would unavoidably dip.

Li Yufei was afraid that if his performance slipped, the media would slap him with a "Fry's Rookie Wall" label.

And if Wenger bought into it, thinking Li Yufei still needed time to develop, and kept him on the bench...

That would be a case of trying to steal a chicken only to lose the bait!

For now, Li Yufei's priority was to perform as well as possible on the pitch.

Only then would Wenger fully trust him and promote Li Yufei to Arsenal's starting striker.

Once he'd secured that starting spot, Li Yufei could start thinking about other things.

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