At halftime, the Sky Sports commentators were still hotly debating Varane's costly mistake in the dying moments of the first half.
"Keep in mind, Rafael is only seventeen. He's even younger than Li Yufei, and it's perfectly normal to make a mistake in his first Premier League appearance."
"We need to give him enough time. At the very least, this match has shown that Rafael has excellent speed and leaping ability."
"His talent is there for all to see. There's no doubt he can develop into a player every bit as good as Vermaelen!"
Martin Tyler thought highly of Varane and began to defend him.
Andy Gray, on the other hand, held a different view:
"I don't think it's a wise decision to make a seventeen-year-old the starting center back for a top club."
"Arsène is rushing things. A defender isn't a forward, who can stand out with just one flash of inspiration."
"Defenders need plenty of match experience to develop."
"He's treating Rafael like Li Yufei. That's a very poor decision."
"Arsenal clearly have other good defenders to choose from. Why does Arsène insist on starting a seventeen-year-old?"
Hearing Andy's last remark, Martin couldn't help but mock him:
"Come on, Arsenal have other good defenders to choose from?"
"What kind of joke is that?"
"Anyone who follows Arsenal knows that Koscielny and Vermaelen are the only defenders in the squad who are up to scratch."
"Now that Vermaelen has been ruled out for the rest of the season, Arsenal have no one left but Rafael."
"As for Squillaci, their number eighteen, who they brought in for four million pounds this summer, he's an absolute joke!"
"I hear he's been putting in one dreadful performance after another in Arsenal's training matches. He's so bad that Arsène doesn't even have the courage to throw him into a real game."
"I can say this even though the season hasn't been underway for a month yet: that four-million-pound transfer has already been an utter failure!"
"Just think about it. Arsène would rather play seventeen-year-old Rafael than use Squillaci, whom they bought for four million pounds. That tells you all you need to know about how terrible the latter is!"
The argument in the studio had no effect on the Arsenal players in the dressing room.
Wenger didn't say much about Varane's mistake. Instead, he praised the youngster for several excellent defensive plays in the first half.
When Varane realized the boss wasn't going to criticize him, the knot of anxiety in his chest finally loosened.
As long as the manager didn't hold it against him, the pressure on him would be much lighter.
The second half began.
Bolton Wanderers defender Stanton fouled Li Yufei at the edge of the penalty area, earning a yellow card. The referee also awarded Arsenal a free kick.
Fabregas took a moment to line up the shot. The ball curled around the wall and sailed just over the crossbar.
In the sixty-third minute.
Fabregas played another incisive through ball, cutting through Bolton Wanderers' defense.
Li Yufei accelerated to run onto it and go one-on-one with the keeper, but Gary Cahill, who had anticipated the move, hauled him down from behind.
Since Cahill had denied Arsenal an excellent one-on-one opportunity, the referee showed him a straight red!
Bolton Wanderers were suddenly down to ten men against eleven.
Seeing Li Yufei lying on the ground, Wenger worried that he might get hurt again, so he quickly took him off.
The Moroccan Chamakh came on in his place.
Li Yufei felt a little frustrated when he saw his number go up.
Without that pull from behind, he could very well have scored twice again!
Instead, he'd been taken off after scoring only once. It was the first time since arriving in the Premier League that he'd scored just one goal in a match.
What a precipitous decline!
That was an incredibly Versailles thing to say. If the other players heard him, they'd probably curse him out.
But it was the truth!
Li Yufei had only played four league matches so far. In the first three, he'd scored twice in two matches and pulled off a hat-trick in the other.
In this match, he'd scored only once.
That made eight goals in four league games, an average of two per match.
Tsk, the numbers really were startling when you stopped to count them!
Drogba, second in the Premier League Top Scorers List, had only scored four goals—half as many as Li Yufei!
For a moment, Li Yufei couldn't tell whether scoring in the Premier League was just too easy, or whether he was even better than he'd imagined!
Of course, Arsenal's schedule had something to do with it.
After all, in their first four league matches, only the opening-day clash with Liverpool could barely be called a battle between two top sides.
The other three had been little more than easy pickings.
Strictly speaking, even playing Liverpool had been a different kind of easy picking.
If they ran into a string of strong teams later on, Li Yufei's scoring rate would surely drop.
Still, consistently beating the weaker sides was no easy task in itself.
Because the title race wasn't really about who won more big games. It was about who could beat the weaker teams more consistently.
Arsenal had gone without a title in recent years because they weren't as good at beating weaker teams as Manchester United and Chelsea.
The teams managed by Ferguson and Mourinho had always been remarkably consistent when it came to dispatching weaker opponents.
Wenger, by contrast, had fallen short in that department.
Li Yufei vaguely remembered that Arsenal had ended up finishing fourth that season because they collapsed late on.
In the nine matches from the thirtieth round through the end of the Premier League season, Arsenal won only twice!
What did that mean?
In nine league matches, they could theoretically have earned a maximum of twenty-seven points.
But Wenger managed to scrape together just ten points in those final nine games, dropping seventeen!
That tally even included the three points Manchester United had handed Arsenal in their second meeting, after United had already secured the league title.
In other words, Arsenal had won just one match through their own ability!
And how many points behind that season's champions, Manchester United, did Arsenal finish?
Twelve!
That was four wins' worth of points!
If Arsenal had played like a proper team during that last month, who knows who would have won the title?
Thinking about it, Li Yufei suddenly felt that his style of play was indeed perfect for beating weaker teams.
With him on the team this season, Arsenal had every chance of challenging for the league title.
"Ugh, in the end, it all comes down to me!" Li Yufei thought smugly.
Back to the match.
After Gary Cahill was sent off, Bolton Wanderers' manager quickly took off forward Petrov and brought on defender Andy O'Brien.
In the seventy-second minute.
Wenger made another substitution, taking off Wilshere and bringing on Diaby to shore up the midfield.
In the seventy-eighth minute.
Arshavin received the ball on the edge of the penalty area and laid it off to Song, who set himself up and scored with a long shot. Arsenal extended their lead to 3–1.
In the eighty-third minute.
Fabregas and Arshavin played a one-two at the edge of the penalty area. Fabregas surged into the box and, with the goalkeeper rushing out, gently passed the ball across to the far side.
Chamakh, who had come on as a substitute, faced a gaping open goal and calmly slotted it home. Arsenal sealed the win at 4–1.
As the final whistle sounded—two short blasts followed by a long one—Arsenal beat Bolton Wanderers 4–1 at home to make it four league wins in a row.
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