Actually, Liverpool wasn't fighting on two fronts, but three. Because they also had the League Cup to play.

The English League Cup main competition had started in early August, but Premier League teams didn't join until the third round. By that time, it was already late September.

Due to the large number of events in England, it was almost impossible not to rotate players; otherwise, few of the big teams would be able to hold on.

Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup, Champions League, and Europa League – these were all competitions that England's big teams had to participate in. If they were lucky and kept winning, they would have to play seventy games in a season. Almost every week was a double match week, and players weren't made of iron. So if they didn't rotate, the players' physical strength would be exhausted early, injuries would become frequent, and in the end, they would collapse.

Rotation was a compulsory course for all the big teams in England.

Last season, Liverpool only had domestic competitions, so they didn't rotate much, but even so, in the second half of the season, players were frequently injured, which gave Dalglish a headache.

Now, in order to prevent this from happening, Martin O'Neill started rotating players early.

The media was right, Liverpool wasn't very used to this kind of rotation yet. But the sooner they rotated, the sooner they would adapt. If they rotated late, they would adapt late, and if they had less time to adapt, the results would be even worse.

Anyway, Liverpool had previously accumulated enough "tuition capital" with an amazing five-game winning streak, so Liverpool could enjoy adapting to rotation to their heart's content. Even if they lost a few more games, the team's performance wouldn't be too bad.

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On September 22nd, in the seventh round of the league, Liverpool welcomed Swansea to Anfield.

In this game, Liverpool continued to rotate, combining the two lineups from the previous game against Fulham and the Europa League game before that.

Chen Hero and Klasnic partnered up front, Sanchez was replaced in the starting lineup by Adam Johnson, while Bellamy was given the left wing, Gerrard and Inler continued to partner in the defensive midfield position, Skrtel and Carragher were the center backs, Glen Johnson was the left back, Enrique was the right back, and Reina was the goalkeeper.

This lineup allowed Liverpool to narrowly defeat Swansea 1-0 at home.

Because it was a completely new starting lineup, Liverpool's players were still not very used to it.

But having Chen Hero was enough.

He scored the only goal of the game with a free kick, helping the team to victory.

This goal was also his tenth goal of the season.

The league had only started seven rounds, and he had already scored ten goals, three goals ahead of Van Persie, who was second in the scoring charts.

It had only just begun, and the competition between the two strikers had already started.

Last season, Van Persie was ultimately overturned by Chen Hero, losing his first league Golden Boot of his professional career.

Everyone felt sorry for him, and some people weren't optimistic about Van Persie continuing to chase Chen Hero. Because they were already very surprised by Van Persie's excellent performance last season.

Who would have thought that perhaps because he wanted to compete with Chen Hero, Van Persie was also in good form this season, scoring seven goals in seven league games, a goal-per-game ratio that was a new high in his professional career.

But even so, he was still behind Chen Hero...

Some London media lamented for Van Persie: "Hero is the nightmare and public enemy of all forwards! I suggest the Premier League set up a new scorer list, only allowing Hero to be on the list, and then leave the current scorer list to ordinary players... otherwise it's too unfair to Van Persie!"

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After the game against Swansea, with only three days in between, Liverpool welcomed the League Cup match.

They were away to Reading.

In the league, Liverpool had thrashed Reading 6-0 at home. Now this was Reading's chance for revenge, because Liverpool had rotated again.

Since playing in the Europa League, Liverpool's starting lineup had never been exactly the same.

This time, Chen Hero and Suarez started, Kuyt played on the right wing, Bellamy was given the left wing, Lucas, who had recovered from injury, partnered with Inler in the middle, the center backs were replaced by the young Martin Kelly and Coates, the right back was the young Flanagan, born in 1993, and the left back was the reserve team's Jack Robinson. Reina was still the goalkeeper.

It could be seen that Martin O'Neill intended to use the League Cup as his "experimental field" for getting the team used to rotation, and also gave many young players a chance to play.

Such a large-scale rotation made Liverpool's players a little unaccustomed, and Reading could take advantage of their home advantage to get revenge.

Who would have thought that old hatred hadn't been repaid, and new hatred was added...

They lost 2-4 at their own home ground. Although they scored two goals in the game, which once gave them hope of winning, Chen Hero ruthlessly suppressed them.

As the top scorer in the League Cup last season, Chen Hero scored a hat-trick in his first League Cup game of the season.

He was truly in amazing form in September.

He had just been named Premier League Player of the Month in August, and now it seemed that the Player of the Month for September would also be him.

Liverpool defeated Reading 4-2 away and successfully advanced to the fourth round, where their opponents would be Cardiff City, the opponents in last season's League Cup final...

Was this another revenge match?

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Due to fighting on multiple fronts, the Europa League away game against Grika on September 29th and the Premier League eighth round, Liverpool's away game against Stoke City, clashed. So Liverpool's game against Stoke City was postponed to October 2nd.

From this, it could be seen how dense Liverpool's schedule was for the entire month of September...

In September, they played four Premier League games, two Europa League games – one was the upcoming away game against Grika, and one League Cup game. A total of seven games. Considering that the first half of September was the international match day, Liverpool only played one league game in the first fifteen days, and the remaining six games were all squeezed into the half month after the fifteenth, averaging one game every two and a half days.

With such a dense schedule, it was no wonder that Liverpool's coach, Martin O'Neill, would risk a decline in the team's performance to rotate players. If they didn't rotate, the team's physical reserves would be exhausted before Christmas even arrived...

There was nothing much to say about the game against Grika in Slovenia. The difference in strength between the two sides was too great, and even if Grika was playing at home, they couldn't make up for this gap.

So Liverpool defeated Grika 2-1 away, achieving two consecutive victories.

Sporting Lisbon drew 1-1 with Anderlecht at home. In this way, Liverpool, with two wins in two games, took the lead alone. They were currently first in the group, and their chances of qualifying were very optimistic.

Liverpool won, and Chen Hero also scored in the game.

After two rounds, he already had three goals in the Europa League, currently ranked first in the Europa League scorer list, but he was tied.

The Europa League had teams of varying strengths, so it was indeed easy for people to use it to pad their goalscoring stats. So it was normal for Chen Hero not to take the lead alone.

Originally, Chen Hero was quite happy with his performance, but a day later he heard a piece of news – Messi scored twice in the Champions League game later that day, and after two Champions League games, his goal count was the same as his, also three.

Hearing this news, Chen Hero's brow furrowed at that moment, his teeth were gnawing, and his whole expression looked like he had a toothache.

The difficulty of the Champions League was different from that of the Europa League, and Messi had actually scored three goals... Compared to that, what value was there in his three goals?

Compared to others, it was simply terrible! He was still happy before, happy for what?! It was simply a joke! Damn it! Playing in a competition with a lower difficulty than others, and only scoring three goals! It was simply appalling!

So after returning to Liverpool, when reporters praised him for scoring again, ranking first in the Europa League scorer list with three goals, for performing outstandingly, for being a great contributor to Liverpool's victory, and for being the key factor if Liverpool could qualify from the group stage, Chen Hero couldn't be happy at all.

During training breaks, when he accepted interviews from reporters, he was also absent-minded and listless.

The reporters saw it in their eyes and were puzzled.

Some reporters asked Chen Hero what was wrong, but this made Chen Hero frown even more – he couldn't tell the reporters what he was thinking, so the reporters had no idea why Chen Hero was so unhappy...

Some people guessed randomly whether Chen Hero had encountered some trouble, and hoped that the matter wouldn't affect Chen Hero's state, so as not to drag down the team's performance.

But Chen Hero didn't explain, so there were even more guesses. It was still alright in the media, but among the fans, all kinds of bizarre rumors spread.

The most widespread and credible rumor was that there was a conflict between Chen Hero and Cabral, the two had quarreled, their relationship had come to an end, and a breakup was imminent. That's why Chen Hero was in a bad mood.

This theory was the most popular, after all, everyone had always felt that Chen Hero's relationship was unstable. After he and Cabral got together, betting companies offered betting projects such as "Guess when Chen Hero and Cabral will break up".

Cabral called to ask Chen Hero: "I heard you're going to break up with me recently, Hero?"

Chen Hero rolled his eyes: "You believe what the media says too!"

Sure enough, laughter came from the other end of the phone – she actually knew, but was just making a little joke with Chen Hero.

But after laughing, she still said seriously to Chen Hero: "But if you really want to break up with me, I don't want to hear about it in the media."

Chen Hero coughed: "I don't want to break up with you right now, Christine."

"That's good, because I don't want to either."

Chen Hero hung up the phone and was still thinking – was that Cabral's love talk?

It was really not easy to hear that woman say those cheesy words...