Chapter 780: Will Not Be Denied.
After the goal, North London was alive in ways only football could summon.
In a packed pub near Holloway Road, tables were sticky with spilt lager, voices hoarse with song, and the air thick with the kind of chants that were more enthusiastic than tuneful.
Arsenal scarves hung over shoulders like battle colours, and every mention of Liverpool was met with either a mocking lyric or a jeer shouted over a pint glass.
"Van Dijk can’t handle him! He’s dancing in his boots!" one man bellowed, sloshing half his beer as his mates howled with laughter.
Another group launched into a sloppy chorus about Trent getting twisted by Izan, the words half-lost in the haze, but the rhythm was infectious enough that the whole pub joined in, drumming the tables like they were terraces.
Amid the noise and the warm glow of collective belief, a middle-aged man sat wedged between two younger fans.
His pint sat untouched on the table, his phone buzzing insistently in his hand.
He frowned when he saw the name on the screen—Margaret (Wife)—and sighed like a schoolboy caught sneaking biscuits before dinner.
With a reluctant shuffle, he pushed his way through the crowd and slipped outside, the door muffling the chaos behind him.
"Hello, love," he said, pressing the phone to his ear.
His tone was gentle, softened by habit.
Margaret fired off questions: had he paid the gas bill, had he remembered the parcel coming tomorrow?
He nodded absently, muttering reassurances, his eyes flicking toward the frosted glass of the pub door.
Barely twenty seconds had passed before a sound tore through the wood and the night—the unmistakable, rolling roar of a goal cry.
It started as a guttural "gooooooaaaalll!" from the pub and seemed to ripple across the entire street, voices erupting from open windows, spilling out of neighbouring bars.
The man’s face changed instantly, confusion flashing into joy.
"Ah—ah, I’ll talk to you later, woman," he blurted, his words tumbling fast, clumsy.
"You want to stop my joy—not today!
"And with that, he hung up, half-laughing, shoving the phone into his coat pocket as he hurried inside.
The pub was bedlam.
Strangers were hugging, beer was raining from plastic cups, and the chant was now a full-throated song of triumph.
On the screen, Izan was running toward the corner flag, arms stretched wide, a grin splitting his face as teammates chased after him.
The man froze for a heartbeat, eyes locked on the television, and then he joined the storm of celebration, his earlier worries forgotten, swallowed whole by the delirium of North London.
...
[Anfield]
The Arsenal end was shaking, bodies stacked on bodies, voices ripping through the Merseyside night.
On the touchline, chaos reigned too.
Mikel Arteta had sprung forward like a man about to cross the white line himself, only to be hauled back and half-embraced by his assistant, Carlos Cuesta.
The Spaniard clung onto his manager not out of joy but necessity, fear that Arteta’s sheer instinct to celebrate with his players would earn him a needless yellow card or even worse.
Over it all came the unmistakable voice of Peter Drury, words rising above the roar as though they’d been waiting for this moment.
"IZAN MUIRA. JUST WHAT SHOULD WE DO WITH THIS BOY!!"
"He will not be denied! Twenty seconds, just twenty seconds after Liverpool tried to rip away their rhythm, Arsenal’s boy has dragged them back from the brink. You can hear the away end, you can see the Arsenal bench. It is pandemonium, but it is their pandemonium this time!"
On the screen, the replay began to roll.
Liverpool’s kickoff had been cynical, a long ball lofted forward in an attempt to scatter Arsenal’s shape.
But Declan Rice read it like a schoolboy’s trick, climbing above his marker to win the duel, chest firm, touch decisive.
He didn’t hesitate as his next stride carried the ball into space, his eyes already cutting to Izan.
The pass fizzed into the teenager’s feet, and in one motion, Izan swept it right to Bukayo Saka, and it was almost like the winger knew what was coming.
He squared up Andrew Robertson, feinted one way, then burst the other, leaving the Scot on the wrong hip and then with a flick of his boot, he slid the ball into the pocket of grass behind the retreating Liverpool backline.
For a heartbeat, it seemed absurd because Izan was nowhere near it, still thirty yards back when the pass was played.
But then came the surge, the acceleration that felt like it bent the rules of the game.
He ate up the pitch, shoulders pumping, legs stretching, passing red shirts as though gravity itself worked differently for him as he reached the ball a split-second before Alisson could close the angle and, with ice in his veins, lifted it over the keeper.
The chip seemed to hang in the air forever, a slow arc lit by floodlights and prayer, before it dipped into the far corner.
"And Arsenal are level! Two-two! Two for Liverpool, two for Arsenal, and as it stands—" Drury’s voice cracked, almost drowned by the noise, "—as it stands now, Arsenal are your Premier League champions!"
The away end convulsed in joy.
The players in black shirts and white shorts swarmed the scorer, shirts tugged, hands on heads, scarcely believing.
On the bench, substitutes spilt to the edge of the technical area, fists raised, lungs emptied in disbelief.
And then came Drury again, slower this time, words delivered like scripture.
"But someone said, it was win or nothing. And he... he has just struck Arsenal into winning contention, and into title contention."
On the big screen inside Anfield, Izan’s face appeared, glistening with sweat, eyes blazing as he jogged back toward the halfway.
His hands were up in his hair, his loosened rubber band in his hand, being re-tied again.
The camera cut briefly to the scoreboard: 71:47 — Liverpool 2, Arsenal 2.
And the screen, where a banner was showing Goal number 45 of Izan’s Premier League campaign.
Back at the centre circle, Cody Gakpo placed the ball down for Liverpool’s restart, shoulders sagging under the weight of something akin to déjà vu.
It was the third time since the second half began that he had been forced into this ritual.
On the touchline, Arteta was a storm barely contained, but his message was clear.
Hands cupped to his mouth, arms circling, he barked at his men: "Safe now! Calm! Composure!"
The whistle blew as Gakpo tapped the ball back, and the game was alive again, but after the kickoff, the match had slipped into that unbearable stage.
One where every breath felt like it could be the last before catastrophe.
Both sides poured forward, legs heavy, lungs burning, yet pride and desperation dragged them beyond exhaustion.
Liverpool pressed harder than they had when the game had even started.
Darwin Núñez, subbed on with raw energy and chaos, spun away from Gabriel and lashed a shot that Raya smothered with his chest.
Arsenal scrambled, Rice clearing only as far as Mac Allister, whose drive from distance skipped narrowly wide of the post.
Anfield groaned in unison, half believing it had gone in.
Arsenal’s reply came with equal fury.
Izan again—always Izan—dropping deep to collect, shrugged off Szoboszlai’s tug and spun into space.
He slid a ball between Van Dijk and Robertson, unleashing Nwaneri, who had come on, a throw-in ago for Martinelli.
The youngster tore through, eyes narrowing on Alisson, but his cut-back for Saka was hacked away at full stretch by Konaté.
The away end howled, their voices breaking against the red wall of Anfield, but still the pendulum swung.
Salah received on the edge, darted inside, teased Calafiori into a stumble and curled a low ball, but it was blocked by Timber’s thigh.
The rebound fell awkwardly, bobbling toward Diaz, but Izan, from nowhere, thundered across the turf and nicked it away, collapsing into a tackle that earned him a roar from the travelling faithful.
The clock crawled, and every second doubled in weight.
Liverpool, though, smelled blood.
Szoboszlai threaded a pass down the channel for Núñez again, and this time his cutback found Gakpo in stride.
The Dutchman let fly, only for Gabriel to fling his body across and divert it high into the night.
The ball spun, awkward and teasing, before bouncing just beyond Raya’s crossbar.
A corner.
The Kop erupted, a swell of bodies bouncing as one, urging, demanding.
On the broadcast, Peter Drury’s voice rang out, charged with the gravity of the moment:
"Anfield holds its breath... they have poured themselves into this, red shirts relentless, and now they have a corner that may yet decide everything."
Trent Alexander-Arnold jogged across with a ball from one of the ball boys tucked under his arm, face slick with sweat but eyes bright with purpose.
He placed it down, every movement deliberate, every second prolonging the agony as the noise built again, a wall of sound, and Arsenal’s defenders drawing back into their box, hearts pounding.
A/N: This is the first of the day.