"Tsk."
Inside the Chelsea team bus, the players were on their way back after a 3–1 win over Crystal Palace.
It should've been a good result — but Mourinho wasn't smiling.
They had conceded once, and to him, that was unacceptable.
A man obsessed with defensive perfection, Mourinho could live with a narrow 1–0 win, but not with leaking a goal. Conceding meant cracks in the system, flaws in his fortress — and he hated that.
As always, after a goal against, even in victory, his expression was icy.
Sitting at the front of the bus, Mourinho had his eyes fixed on the small monitor showing Arsenal vs. Manchester City.
Chelsea's biggest rivals for the title were one point ahead in the table, and tonight, Mourinho was quietly rooting for City to do him a favour.
But from what he was seeing, City weren't showing enough fight.
Their play looked disjointed — flashy in moments, but with little real bite.
Arsenal, on the other hand, were in control. Calm, compact, and disciplined in their transitions.
And at the centre of it all stood Kai.
City had tried to draw him out of position again and again, but the Arsenal captain stayed rooted in that holding role, shielding the back line like a wall.
No matter what traps they set, Kai didn't bite.
Watching it unfold, Mourinho couldn't help but think of the goal Chelsea had conceded earlier — born out of David Luiz's over-eagerness to press forward.
If only Luiz had Kai's composure, Mourinho thought, they'd have kept a clean sheet.
He broke the silence. "Has the club made any new offers?"
Assistant coach Steve Holland looked up, caught off guard. Then he sighed with a small smile. "You still haven't let that go, have you?"
Chelsea had approached Arsenal several times for Kai, but the Gunners hadn't budged an inch.
They knew exactly what he meant to them.
Kai wasn't the kind of player you sold to fund three others. He was the anchor, the system's heartbeat. His transfer value might not match a forward like Suarez, but his importance? Far greater.
Arsenal would never let him go — just as Chelsea would never have let Lampard leave in his prime.
After multiple failed attempts, the club had dropped the pursuit, but Mourinho hadn't.
He'd even spoken to Abramovich directly about it. No one knew what was said behind closed doors, but Mourinho had walked away from that meeting visibly disappointed.
Still, he hadn't given up hope.
If it were up to him, Chelsea would keep knocking until Arsenal's door creaked open.
Part of that obsession came from his frustration with Oscar's development.
Despite Oscar's effort and discipline, he simply didn't feel like Kai — didn't control the rhythm, didn't command the team with that quiet authority.
Kai wasn't just a defensive midfielder. He was the spine of the team — a leader, calm and ruthless in equal measure.
At just 20 years old, he'd turned Arsenal into a cohesive, disciplined unit. Under his leadership, the Gunners were no longer fragile — they were formidable.
And for any coach, a player like that was a dream.
Mourinho was infatuated with Kai's footballing mind — the way he read the game, his self-discipline, his maturity beyond his years.
If Kai ever came to Chelsea, Mourinho had already decided: he would have been Lampard's successor.
But it was all wishful thinking. Neither Arsenal nor Kai had any interest in a move.
The thought made Mourinho's expression darken further.
He had never wanted a player this badly — not because of flash or fame, but because Kai fit his system like the missing piece of a perfect puzzle.
It was the purest form of admiration — love without possession.
On the screen, the second half had just begun.
Arsenal continued to dictate the rhythm, while City looked increasingly impatient. They knew that losing tonight would effectively end their title hopes.
So they threw more men forward, pushing the line higher and higher, trying to overwhelm Arsenal through sheer numbers.
But numbers don't guarantee control.
City had bodies everywhere — even Džeko had dropped deep to link play — but their passes were forced, their buildup choppy.
Kai occupied every vital channel, cutting off passing lanes like a human firewall. Every time City tried to connect through midfield, he was there — intercepting, pressing, disrupting, making their rhythm crumble.
Yaya Touré and his teammates looked frustrated, as if trapped in quicksand — the harder they tried, the worse it got.
David Silva, receiving the ball with his back to goal, spun left to escape Cazorla and find some breathing room. He just managed to slip free—
But before he could turn, Yaya Touré shouted, "Watch out!"
The next moment, Silva was bumped off balance and lost control completely.
Kai pounced.
He couldn't muscle Yaya Touré off the ball, but Silva? That was light work.
In one clean motion, Kai stole possession and immediately lifted his head.
Then, using that incredible core strength of his, he planted his right foot and whipped a low, driven pass forward — the ball slicing through the grass like a bullet.
It threaded perfectly between Clichy and Demichelis, slightly closer to Clichy's side.
Demichelis reacted quickly, sprinting to cut it out.
Demichelis lunged, stretching out his right foot — but just as the ball was about to meet his studs, it skipped up off the turf and sailed over his boot.
His expression froze.
"It's gone!"
Demichelis slid helplessly past, twisting around in panic.
By the time he looked up, Suarez was already in full stride, chasing the ball into the penalty area.
Martin Taylor's voice came alive on commentary:
"Demichelis—oh, that's a dreadful misjudgment! Suarez is through! One-on-one!"
Alan Smith jumped in, "He's got no time to think here — Suarez straight through on goal!"
Joe Hart had rushed out, trying to close the angle.
But Suarez, calm as ever, took his shot early.
He aimed for the far corner, the strike crisp and powerful.
Hart flung himself across, fingertips outstretched — but he was never getting there.
The ball rattled off the inside of the far post and bounced into the net.
2–0 to Arsenal!
The Emirates erupted in a wave of noise and red.
The 77th minute — and Arsenal were edging closer to the Premier League title dream.
On the touchline, Wenger clenched both fists and punched the air before turning to his bench.
"Ramsey! Arteta! Get warmed up!" he shouted.
In the 83rd minute, Arsenal made their changes.
Kai came off to a standing ovation, replaced by Ramsey. Cazorla followed, making way for Arteta.
With the result under control, Wenger wasn't taking chances. The Champions League still awaits.
As Kai walked off, Pat Rice greeted him by the technical area.
"How're you feeling? Any tightness?" Pat asked.
Kai gave a grin and a thumbs-up. "All good."
Pat chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. "Brilliant job, lad."
From the sidelines, Kai watched the rest unfold.
Without him, City began to find a bit more space. They pushed hard, desperate for a lifeline.
Chance after chance slipped by — until, finally, in stoppage time, Yaya Touré unleashed a long-range strike that flew past Szczęsny to make it 2–1.
City pressed again, twice more in the dying seconds, as the clock crept past the three added minutes.
Every Arsenal player was shouting, and Wenger was pacing furiously at the edge of his box.
And then — the whistle blew.
Full-time.
Arsenal 2, Manchester City 1.
Round 31 of the Premier League — and Arsenal stayed top of the table.
City's title hopes, though, were all but finished. The gap now stretched to ten points.
As Martin Taylor summed it up from the gantry:
"Arsenal remain in control of their destiny — City fall away, and with that, perhaps, their title challenge too."
Alan Smith added, "It's now a three-horse race — Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool. But right now, it's the Gunners who've got their hands closest to that trophy."
...
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