Chapter 775: Backing The Talk.
"They are not going to let him have it easy. Not tonight, not here. Izan talked boldly during the build-up, but this is Liverpool’s response: You don’t walk into their house and dictate the story without a fight."
Peter Drury’s tone followed, weighty, reflective.
"And it is worth remembering, since the day he first started in an Arsenal shirt, they have never lost a match with him on the pitch. The aura, the numbers, the brilliance, it all feeds the legend. But this, this is the reality of Anfield. They will test him, they will bruise him, and they will see if seventeen can carry the burden of history."
Down on the pitch, Izan lay for a moment, blinking at the noise raining from the stands.
Boos, jeers, even a few chants thrown like daggers.
Yet there was something else, too, the undercurrent of fear wrapped inside the hostility.
They had come to know who he was and what he was capable of.
They knew what he could do.
And so, they cheered the foul, cheered the interruption, cheered the bruising as if it might tame him.
The referee signalled the free-kick, raising a hand in warning toward Gravenberch but keeping the card tucked away for now.
Odegaard jogged over to check on his young teammate, offering a hand to haul him up as Izan dusted himself down, jaw set, his eyes calm, unreadable.
Saka, from out wide, clapped him on the back.
"They’re going to keep coming," he muttered, voice low enough that only Izan could hear.
The teenager gave the smallest of nods, but nothing showed that he was fazed.
If anything, they had awoken something primal in him and if this was how they were going to play.
Ding, [Host has Activated Trickster trait]
"Ahh, let’s get the party started," Izan muttered as the referee waved for play.
Odegaard crouched over the ball after the foul, the Anfield whistles still raining down in approval of the tackle by Gravenberch.
The Norwegian captain gave a short signal with his hand, and then rolled the restart straight into Izan’s path behind him.
The Liverpool midfield immediately burst forward towards the ball like Sailors drawn to a Siren’s song, but the teenager didn’t even touch it.
He opened his stance and let the ball slide right between his legs, and suddenly Declan Rice was there behind him to collect.
"Lovely dummy from Miura," Peter Drury’s voice carried over the noise.
"It sets Arsenal moving again, but Liverpool won’t allow them to breathe."
And sure enough, the red front three surged forward, Gakpo snapping at Rice’s shoulder, Diaz closing down the angle, Salah pinching in from the far side.
Rice twisted once, twice, but the wall of red forced him to retreat, turning the ball back to Saliba on the halfway line.
The French defender looked up, expecting to see his midfielders marked.
Instead, a flash of black and white appeared at his shoulder, and there was Izan, somehow drifting all the way back near Arsenal’s defensive third, completely untracked.
And Saliba didn’t hesitate.
He zipped it into the youngster’s feet as Arne Slot erupted on the touchline, his voice slicing through the Kop’s roar.
"How? How is he there?!"
He was pointing resignedly at his midfield, disbelief etched across his face.
"That’s criminal, Peter. He’s wandered twenty yards free. Someone has to pick him up," Jim Beglin jumped on the replay.
Izan barely let the words settle.
He shaped his body one way, then leaned the other, sending Darwin Núñez stumbling past him with a faint that looked almost lazy.
Then, keeping the ball tight, he angled forward into the press.
Szoboszlai lunged, desperate to close him down, but Izan’s response was instantaneous.
With a deft flick, he sent it between the Hungarian’s legs, the ball rolling out on the other side into the stride of Odegaard.
But the captain gave it straight back.
Izan now had his back to Mac Allister, but before the Argentine could press tight, another red shadow loomed.
Gravenberch stretched a telescopic leg, trying to nick the ball away.
But Izan had already read it.
He nudged it forward just in time, threading it through Gravenberch’s own legs, and this time, the away end exploded in delight, the sound sharp and defiant, while the groans from the home crowd underlined the insult.
"That is outrageous," Drury gasped. "First Szoboszlai, now Gravenberch—both undone by the teenager’s sleight of touch."
The camera caught Izan’s head lifting, scanning for his colours.
And after settling on a channel, he bent his foot around the ball, striking with the outside, sending a curling trivela arcing inside of Alexander-Arnold.
The Englishman stretched to intercept the pass, but it spun perfectly past his leg and into Martinelli’s stride down the left.
Martinelli accelerated, and still behind him, was Arnold backpedalling like his life depended on it until the Brazilian came to a halt and held it, waiting for support as Arnold burst into view, but the former needn’t have worried, because Izan was already ghosting into position, arriving on the edge of the box.
With his eyes spot on, Martinelling threw Arnold off with a feint before squaring the ball towards Izan.
The pass fizzed into him, but before he could even think of turning, Konaté was there, and Gravenberch was within reach too.
So Izan made another choice.
He hopped clean over the rolling ball, his decoy run dragging the two defenders with him, and Odegaard read it instantly, stepping onto the pass as if it had been scripted.
"Izannn- Odegaard," Peter Drury roared as the Norwegian captain struck first time, low, hard, arrowing toward the bottom corner.
The ball streaked across the grass, almost a certain goal until Alisson dived full stretch.
"Alissoonnnnn"
Clang
The Brazilian’s fingertips pushed the ball against the post as the rebound bounced cruelly back into play, but it soon became safe as Van Dijk arrived like a wrecking ball, kicking it clear before Saka could pounce.
The clearance skidded toward the far side, Robertson tearing after it.
He slid, body bouncing off the turf, and just managed to hook it out for a throw with Saka looming.
The away end roared again, flags waving, fists pumping, every small victory savoured in hostile territory.
"Almost a first. Arsenal with the first shot and shot on target of the game, but that move, oh! That entire move was threaded together by Miura. The way he drifted into space, the double nutmeg, the disguise to let Odegaard shoot. Arsenal so nearly ahead, and the boy so nearly the architect."
Beglin added, "And that’s what makes him dangerous. Even when he doesn’t touch the ball, he changes the picture. Konaté and Gravenberch followed him like moths to a flame, yet he leaves the space for Odegaard."
On the sideline, Timber jogged across to take the throw, wiping his hands on his shirt before grabbing the ball as Arsenal’s shape began to reset, but the buzz from the last passage hadn’t faded, neither from the stands nor from the commentary box.
Timber, towel tucked into his waistband, took a few steps back before winding up and launching the throw into the feet of Partey.
The Ghanaian midfielder barely needed a touch, and he already knew where he wanted it.
A quick, flat ball was zipped into Bukayo Saka, hugging the touchline.
Saka cushioned it with his instep, Robertson closing fast, teeth gritted as he lowered his centre of gravity.
The Scot reached with his left boot, but Saka nudged the ball diagonally in-field just before contact, then burst around the outside.
A flicker of balance, the faint brush of arms colliding, but Saka was already gone, leaving Robertson scrambling to pivot.
"That little glide... Saka’s trademark. Robertson’s been here before, and he doesn’t enjoy it," Drury’s tone rose with recognition.
The moment Saka got to the ball, he looked inwards for an option, and there was Odegaard offering a return, and he didn’t hesitate sending the ball to the Norwegian, who returned it, opening the lane Saka wanted.
He clipped the ball forward, a whip of his left boot sending it curling inside the six-yard box, the kind of cross that twists defenders’ feet into knots.
But Alisson read it.
The Brazilian keeper surged off his line with perfect timing, long arms outstretched, gloves swallowing the ball cleanly before Martinelli, who had filled the centre space, could even sniff.
And just like that, danger turned to opportunity.
Alisson didn’t wait.
He popped straight back up, momentum carrying him into a half-punt, half-drop-kick that sailed forty yards through the air, but it wasn’t aimless.
It was deliberate, a quarterback’s release.
"Counter on," Beglin cut in, his voice sharp. "He’s seen Diaz!"
The ball dropped with wicked precision toward the right channel, where Timber was backtracking, neck craned awkwardly as he tried to judge the flight.
He leapt, stretching every inch of his frame, but the ball skimmed just above his hairline, and it fell perfectly for Luis Díaz.
The Colombian’s first touch was velvet, cushioning the ball on the move, his second carrying him past the recovering Timber and suddenly, acres of grass opened up ahead of him, Anfield rising to its feet in anticipation.
The sound swelled like a wave because the counter was on.