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 fra, but the ball skimd 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.
Díaz was flying, the Kop rising with every stride.
Timber scrambled to recover, his boots thundering against the turf, but Thomas Partey stepped across, a last-ditch wall in red and white.
The Ghanaian spread his arms wide, cutting off the lane, his body angled, ready to slow the Colombian down.
But Díaz barely broke stride.
With just two featherlight touches, one to the left, then right, he slipped past, Partey’s hips twisting helplessly as the winger escaped the trap.
It was so clean it was almost balletic, but that montary delay was all Timber needed to make ground, snapping at Díaz’s heels, closing in fast.
The Dutchman lunged with a sharp chop across the Colombian’s shin, a cynical intervention, but the ball had already gone, nudged forward into the feet of Cody Gakpo.
"Liverpool still alive here!" Drury’s voice surged with the play.
Gakpo collected on the half-turn, his touch neat, his fra shielding the ball from Gabriel’s reach.
He glanced once, saw the angle, and cut back against the grain.
A subtle feint drew Lewis-Skelly in tight, then Gakpo, through the tiniest seam of daylight, slipped the ball in behind the teenager.
It was perfect.
And it found Mohad Salah.
The Egyptian didn’t need an invitation because the mont the ball turned towards his direction, he knew what he was going to do, and inarguably, everyone knew what he was going to do.
He touched the ball inside, dragging Lewis-Skelly off balance, the boy left leaning at thin air.
Then ca the familiar picture: Salah setting the ball onto that wand of a left foot.
The stadium held its breath for a beat, before,
Crack.
A curling strike ripped from twenty yards, bending with venom, spinning through the air.
Raya stretched full length, fingertips straining, just enough to redirect, but not enough to save.
The ball cannoned off the underside of the crossbar, ricocheting downward, across the line and into the net, and Anfield erupted.
GOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLL, the fans called as Drury’s voice rose above the chaos, sharp and poetic all at once.
"He has done it again!"
"The Egyptian King... striking at his fortress, and Liverpool strike first in the title decider! A goal carved in red, ruthless and royal, it is Salah, it is Anfield, it is 1–0!"
Salah wheeled away, fists pumping, his eyes blazing as he sprinted toward the corner flag, where he jumped, landing with a snarl, his teammates surging around him, their arms raised, chests pressed to the roar of their supporters.
The sound inside Anfield was a storm.
Chants of "King Salah! Mo Salah!" cascaded from the Kop, spilling into every corner of the ground.
And then, almost inevitably, the caras found Izan.
On the giant screen, the seventeen-year-old’s face appeared, watching from midfield.
The smile tugging at his lips was impossible to miss, half-amused, half-incredulous at the drama, as though even he couldn’t believe how perfectly the caras hunted him.
"And there," Beglin chuckled over the replay, "is the young man who had plenty to say before this one. You wonder if he still wears that grin after this..."
The comntary wound down with the Liverpool players regrouping in front of their fans, basking in the noise, every gesture stoking the fire.
Arsenal’s players jogged back into their shape, heads swivelling, processing the blow, as the ball was brought to the centre circle for the restart.
The away crowd groaned, but didn’t have to wait too long as the ga restarted.
The ball rolled back into play, and almost imdiately, the air shifted.
Arsenal’s young spearhead seed to flick a switch.
Izan dropped into the pocket just inside the Liverpool half, and the ball zipped into him from Rice.
His first touch was a soft cushion with the outside of his boot, and with it, he set the tone.
He stood still for a heartbeat, daring the red shirts to close, the Anfield crowd jeering.
Then, with a sudden shimmy, he turned, slaloming between Mac Allister and Gravenberch like they were training cones.
"And here he goes," Drury breathed, the tension rising. "The boy who said it was win or nothing, picking up the gauntlet himself."
Gravenberch lunged back, clipping at his heels, but Izan rolled through it, hips loosening into that sway that scread Ronaldinho, the ball dancing at his feet, teasing, taunting.
Szoboszlai ca across, shoulder lowered, but Izan’s flick was outrageous, popped delicately through the Hungarian’s leg, and he was gone in an instant, stride lengthening, the crowd gasping.
Desperation set in as Szoboszlai turned and gave chase, before he grabbed at his shirt, arm coiled around Izan’s torso, dragging him back like a wrestler, and the whistle shrieked.
Yellow card.
"Liverpool have no answer but to foul him," Beglin muttered. "You can already see the pattern, and if they let him turn, if they let him run, they’re in trouble."
Izan got up slowly, brushing his shirt down, a grin tugging at his lips.
The smirk wasn’t for the referee, nor even Szoboszlai, but it was for the jeering wall of Anfield.
Arsenal’s pressure mounted.
Another break, another Izan spark.
He dropped short to receive from Timber, bounced the ball off Ødegaard with a single touch, then burst beyond Van Dijk into the channel.
A reverse trivela sent Martinelli racing clear, alone against Alisson, and it should have been level as the Brazilian winger shaped to curl, right foot arcing around the ball, but the finish bent too wide.
The strike clipped the post with a hollow clang before spinning out into Van Dijk’s clearance as groans from the away end spilt, and on the other hand, was guttural relief from the Kop.
"That was the mont and should have been the mont!" Drury cried.
"Fed by the prodigy and inches from redemption, but Martinelli couldn’t quite find the bend, and the fra of the goal denies Arsenal."
The caras found the teenager again, hoping to see sothing, at least a sigh or an eye roll at the miss, but they saw nothing such.
Instead, he just tapped the side of his temple with a finger, mouthing sothing to Martinelli on his way back.
Then ca the flourish.
Another attack saw Trent Alexander-Arnold stepping high to press him near the touchline.
Izan paused, the ball rolling lazily beneath his studs as a hush of anticipation swept through the stand.
He popped it up with a subtle scoop and, in the sa motion, flicked it over Trent’s head, an audacious rainbow that hung in the air for a heartbeat, glowing in the floodlights.
Izan ghosted past him, catching the ball cleanly on the other side, leaving the right-back turning in circles as the away end erupted, laughter mingling with applause.
"Oh my!" Beglin blurted. "Izan is really at it tonight!"
The Kop roared in outrage, their whistles and jeers almost drowning the comntary.
And Trent, perhaps furious or frustrated, charged back, clipping Izan’s heels, but the youngster was already offloading to Ødegaard, spinning away with a cheeky glance over his shoulder.
Liverpool looked rattled.
Their tackles had beco desperate, their pressing fractured, as though the re presence of the teenager bending the rhythm of the ga had unbalanced them and every ti he touched the ball, the noise swelled.
"And it’s clear now," Drury’s voice carried over the storm, "Arsenal’s seventeen-year-old has decided this ga will not pass him by. He is teasing, tornting, and terrorising. Liverpool can foul, they can scrap, but at the mont, they cannot take the ball from him."
The ga had tilted, and though the scoreline still read 1–0, there was no mistaking who was pulling at the strings of destiny.
Arsenal’s surge ended with a stinging drive from Ødegaard, one he caught cleanly but aid too close to Alisson.
The Brazilian gathered it with ease, pressing the ball to his chest before springing forward to the edge of his box, and he didn’t linger.
With a heave of his right arm, he sent the ball arcing high into the cold rseyside air, spinning towards the halfway line where red and white shirts converged.
Thomas Partey was underneath it, his eyes fixed on the ball’s descent and alongside him, Mac Allister tracked, jostling slightly, but never quite committing to the leap.
Partey rose high, his timing perfect, as his head tilted back, arms spread wide for balance.
But the collision wasn’t in the air.
It ca the mont he landed.
His left boot stuck awkwardly in the turf, his body twisting mid-fall, and as he braced, his right arm flailed out, catching the full weight of his fra.
The crack of impact was almost drowned by the collective gasp as Partey rolled onto his side instantly, clutching at his shoulder, his face contorted in agony.
The whistle shrilled, and the referee’s arms went up, halting play as Liverpool players glanced back, already waving for the physios.
"Oh no..." Jim Beglin’s voice dropped, the tone stripped of colour. "That does not look good for Thomas Partey."
Partey’s screams were brief, quickly reduced to sharp breaths, but they cut through the soundscape.
Even Anfield’s jeers dulled into an uneasy murmur.
The away end fell completely silent, thousands of Arsenal fans frozen, watching one of their stalwarts writhing on the turf.
"It’s innocuous," Peter Drury said, his words careful, "a simple landing, a routine challenge. And yet, look at him. That shoulder... that arm... the anguish tells its own story."
The Arsenal players gathered loosely, exchanging worried glances as Ødegaard pressed his palms together by his chest, muttering sothing under his breath.
Izan stood still, hands on his hips, his eyes fixed on the Ghanaian midfielder, and for once, his smirk was gone.
The caras lingered on Partey, dical staff now kneeling beside him, stabilising his shoulder as he bit down on his lip.
The referee stayed nearby, expression stern, ushering both sets of players back to give the dics space.
"Arsenal have been carrying the fight, their rhythm flowing through him. But now... they may have lost one of their anchors 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.
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