Chapter 777: Partey To Worse.

Chapter 777: Partey To Worse.

The referee stayed nearby, expression stern, ushering both sets of players back to give the medics space.

"Arsenal have been carrying the fight, their rhythm flowing through him. But now... they may have lost their anchor in midfield."

The away section remained hushed, every fan waiting for a sign of hope, a raised thumb, anything.

But Partey’s face said it all, pain etched deep as he was slowly helped into a sitting position, clutching the shoulder that would not obey him.

Arteta’s jaw tightened as he waited by the touchline, eyes locked on the small huddle of medics bent over Partey.

He kept looking at the scene in front of him, hoping for a sign that said Partey could stay on, but one of the medics glanced up at him briefly, shook his head, and the message was clear before a word was spoken.

The shoulder wasn’t going to be patched up with tape and grit; this was serious.

Arteta exhaled sharply, his face dropping as he spun around to the bench, voice raised above the crowd’s restless murmur.

"Mikel, warm up. Fast."

Mikel Merino was already half-rising, and with a determined nod, he pulled off his bib, tossed it aside, and began stretching his legs before jogging down the touchline.

"Nwaneri would have been better," Cuesta said as Merino got out of earshot, but Arteta just shook his head.

"Mikel won’t be bodied around," he said, eyes still on the Spanish midfielder who swung his arms loose as he moved, but the urgency was there in every stride.

Arsenal’s midfield heartbeat had stopped, and he was being asked to restart it.

On the pitch, Partey grimaced as the medics coaxed him, trying to get him into a standing position.

He clutched his arm close to his body, shoulder clearly displaced, his face pale under the floodlights.

A ripple of sympathy washed through the away end, subdued and heavy, and when he was finally pulled to his feet, there was no triumphant wave to reassure them, no raised thumb.

Just pain, and the slow walk towards the sidelines that told its own story.

The referee hovered nearby, checking his watch but respectful, only restarting things when Partey was over the line.

With a quick word to both captains, he dropped the ball, and as custom dictated, Arsenal knocked it back to Liverpool.

But now they were a man short.

Merino wasn’t ready to step in just yet, and the gap in midfield was like blood in the water.

"Liverpool sensing their moment now,

The red shirts swarmed forward, their movement crisp, their rhythm snapping into place.

It was as if they could feel Arsenal’s weakness, aside from it being visible from play.

The press that had looked so cohesive minutes ago suddenly fractured; Liverpool’s passes zipped and bounced with a Barça-like swagger, triangles forming and dissolving in seconds, dragging black shirts across the pitch.

Alexander-Arnold dropped deep, collected the ball, and with a glance over his shoulder, fed it inside.

One touch, two touches, the ball danced across red boots until it came back to him again.

"Look at this," Jim Beglin murmured. "They’ve pulled Arsenal wide open. Rice can’t plug all the holes himself."

And then the switch.

A sweeping diagonal from Trent, lofted perfectly into Salah’s path.

The Egyptian cushioned it instantly, his boots practically velcro, and set off down the right.

Lewis-Skelly chased, legs pumping, heart in his mouth, but Salah had the head start and the experience.

One feint to slow, then a whip of the right foot to send the ball curling into the area.

"Danger here!" Drury called, as the ball arced in, bodies gathering in the box.

Gakpo darted across the near post, defenders tight on him, but he was never going to shoot the ball.

And right behind him, charging in like a predator, was Luis Díaz.

Timber read it late and slid desperately, studs tearing a line in the turf, but Díaz was already there.

The Colombian met it first time, lashing the ball low and ruthlessly past Raya, and as the net bulged, Díaz tumbled from the force of Timber’s challenge, and Anfield erupted.

"GOAL!" the commentators roared, his voice almost drowned out by the wall of noise.

"Luis Díaz this time! Liverpool double their lead, Arsenal cut open, one man light, and they are punished in the harshest way!"

Díaz skidded on his knees towards the corner flag, roaring to the sky, before spinning back to be swallowed up by a red-shirted huddle.

Behind them, Raya pulled himself off the turf with a resigned shake of his head, trudged to retrieve the ball, and fired it straight to the centre circle.

Twice on the night had he been made to look helpless, and it was not fun on both occasions.

"This is spiralling for Arsenal," Peter Drury said grimly.

"They’ve lost Partey, and in the very same breath, they’ve conceded. From bad to worse."

And then, from the Kop, the familiar hymn rose.

First, there were a few voices, then thousands, until it was an avalanche.

You’ll never walk alone...

It rolled over the pitch like a wave, swelling, defiant, celebratory.

Arsenal’s fans on the opposite side sat hushed, dwarfed by the anthem that had broken so many teams before.

"Well," Peter Drury continued, his tone half-admiring, half-challenging, "if Arsenal thought they’d come to Anfield to clinch a title, they’ve been reminded tonight, it doesn’t happen here, not without a fight. Liverpool won’t let this one go. Not until they’re sure Arsenal lift that trophy somewhere else. The title race is alive, and if results swing, Arsenal might yet feel the pressure."

Finally, the substitution board went up.

Partey was already gone, and Merino jogged across the white line for his first start in a while and in perhaps the most hostile environment he could have asked for.

The referee signalled again for the restart as the Liverpool players reset, each player settling in their positions.

Izan stood waiting at the centre circle once again, shoulders squared, boots planted firmly on the ball.

For the third time tonight, he was forced to restart a game Arsenal had been losing grip of.

The whistle went, and he nudged it, and the battle began again, but it was almost as if Izan had decided that if Arsenal were going to go down, it would be with him tearing at every seam to hold them together.

He was everywhere, the kind of everywhere that television cameras struggled to follow.

One moment, he was ghosting back into his own box, flinging himself into a challenge on Gakpo, studs biting the turf as he hooked the ball away at full stretch.

The next, he was at the other end, dragging two red shirts wide before slipping the ball across to Saka, who nearly forced a corner.

His lungs must have been burning, but the fire in his eyes didn’t waver.

"He’s playing like three men right now," Drury said softly, almost reverently. "Box to box, striker, defender, destroyer. As though Arsenal’s burden is his alone."

The away end began to find its voice again.

Every crunching tackle, every interception, every clever pass forward drew a cheer, raw and desperate.

They roared his name not in chorus, but in scattered bursts, fragments of belief, pieces of faith clinging to him.

Still, the game was cruel.

Liverpool pressed with the kind of energy that made even the bravest look mortal.

A loose ball fell to Mac Allister in midfield, and as quickly as he got it, he swept it forward in one fluid motion, the pass curling perfectly into Díaz’s stride.

The Colombian, high on confidence after his goal, slowed to a near-standstill at the edge of the box, toying with black shirts.

A feint to the left, a shimmy to the right, his hips and shoulders throwing defenders into hesitation.

He shaped to shoot, the Kop sucking in air in anticipation, but then Izan tore across the grass, sliding with precision.

His boot nicked the ball clean, sending it spinning away just as Díaz toppled over his leg.

The stadium exploded in uproar, red arms raised, shouts of "penalty!" cascading from the stands.

Díaz slapped the turf in frustration as Timber whirled to plead innocence, and for a heartbeat, the air was thick with tension.

The referee, though, had seen it clearly.

He raised his whistle and blew, not for a foul, but for the end of the half.

"Listen to that," Beglin cut in, his voice tight, the roar of Anfield still surging in the background.

"They all wanted the call, but the referee gives nothing. Just the whistle for half-time. And it’s Arsenal saved by their seventeen-year-old, sliding in like the last wall between them and a third goal."

Drury’s voice came over, layered with the kind of gravity only he could conjure.

"Players can change games. And tonight, Izan is refusing to let Arsenal sink without him. But football, football is not a one-man sport. And unless others find their fire, even his brilliance may not be enough to drag them back."

The players trudged off, the contrast stark between the teams.

Liverpool buoyant, applauded into the tunnel with the Kop still singing, "You’ll Never Walk Alone" rolling like thunder through the rafters.

Arsenal, on the other hand, walked with shoulders heavy, heads low, with only one figure standing upright.

Izan was last to leave the pitch, as though he couldn’t quite accept the whistle had drawn a line under his fight for now.

The half ended with Anfield ablaze, Arsenal wounded, and one teenager holding their fragile hope together by sheer will.