Chapter 475: Architect Of The Game

The referee dropped the ball, and as agreed in good faith, Kai Havertz gave it a gentle nudge back toward the City centre-backs.

A moment of sportsmanship amid the frenzy—a temporary pause in the brewing storm.

But City were restless.

The Etihad murmured with anticipation, wanting fire, fury, and some kind of retaliation.

Bernardo Silva clapped his hands, demanding tempo.

Dias took it on and shifted it quickly across to Gvardiol, who fed Doku wide on the left with that familiar glint of mischief in his eyes.

Doku squared up Timber instantly.

A skip, a shimmy—then the explosion.

The Belgian darted left, feinted right, and tried to slice through a sliver of daylight between Timber and Saliba.

But Jurrien Timber wasn’t buying the trick.

He pivoted low, waited, then jabbed his foot in—clean, perfect.

The ball ricocheted gently off Doku’s shin and stuck to Timber’s foot like a magnet.

A ripple of approval came from the Arsenal end.

Calmly, without fuss, Timber turned out of danger with a subtle shoulder drop, sending Doku stumbling past thin air.

Then, eyes already scanning ahead, he threaded a clean, clever pass into the path of Declan Rice, who opened his stride to receive it with space to charge.

Declan Rice surged forward like a conductor leading an orchestra of movement, touches syncing in harmony with each stride.

Havertz darted to his left, pulling Akanji with him while Saka dropped in on the right, offering a short option.

But Rice had seen something else—someone else.

Izan Hernandez, floating between the lines like a ghost.

With a deft flick of his ankle, Rice rolled the ball toward him just past midfield.

Izan took it in stride with his back to goal, then turned with the elegance of a pirouette, spinning into space and setting the tempo ablaze.

“Here comes Izan again!” Jim Beglin’s voice throbbed with anticipation.

Rúben Dias stepped up, but Izan feinted inside, then shifted out, dicing the City captain with a subtle double-touch.

One. Two. Gone.

Now Arsenal had a lane. A highway.

Gvardiol came sprinting across from the left-back position, sliding to cut the gap—but Izan slowed, rolled the ball with the sole of his boot, and paused time for a second.

Then, with a flick of his heel, he toe-poked the ball diagonally with the outer part of his boot—like a pool shot—right into the open space behind him.

A blur of red shot through the channel.

Riccardo Calafiori.

The left-back, usually more methodical, exploded forward with a striker’s instinct.

The pass met him perfectly, slicing between Kyle Walker and Akanji, just past Dias’s reach.

Calafiori didn’t need to think.

With one thunderous, first-time hit, he smashed it towards goal, the ball fizzing past Ederson’s gloves and crashing into the top right corner.

The away end detonated.

“RICCARDO CALAFIORI! What a hit!” Peter Drury bellowed, voice ricocheting through living rooms across the country.

“And it’s that boy again—Izan Hernandez—weaving magic in the eye of the storm!”

City fans were frozen, disbelieving.

Pep Guardiola’s hand covered his mouth.

He turned to his bench, face unreadable but storming inside.

Calafiori wheeled away, stunned by his own strike, pointing straight to Izan, who simply jogged over with a grin, then gave him a little bow in return.

Saka, laughing, clapped Calafiori on the back.

“Alright, Ricci! You’ve been hiding that left foot from us!”

“It was just set up so well, I had to shoot,” Calafiori replied, breathless.

Meanwhile, in the stands, Arsenal fans sang through the smoke of flares, chants swelling with adrenaline and pride:

“We’ve got our magician, wearing number ten!”

The City kickoff waited as Guardiola barked instructions from the sideline, pacing.

He looked rattled, as if trying to solve a puzzle in a language he hadn’t yet learned.

Back on the pitch, Izan walked back with the calm of someone in control, not just of the moment, but of the atmosphere itself.

2–1. Arsenal were back in front.

And it was only the 22nd minute.

Peter Drury’s voice rang out again, a little breathless now as the Etihad rippled with confusion and frustration.

“Well, you take Rodri out of this Manchester City team, and look—just look—how quickly it unravels. One substitution and suddenly Arsenal are playing through the lines like it’s a training drill.”

Jim Beglin chimed in, shaking his head slightly.

“That’s how vital he is. Rodri is the spine. Without him, they lose that defensive screen. Arsenal wasted no time in taking advantage.”

Down on the pitch, City were still trying to organize themselves, Kovacic only now settling into the shape left behind by Rodri’s departure.

But the game had no time to wait.

Saliba this time, snapped in on Doku again—the same result.

Clean win. Ball stripped.

No whistle.

He played it quickly into Rice, who swept it into Izan with just one touch.

Izan let it run across his body, shifting the weight of City’s midfield with his angle alone.

The tempo surged.

Calafiori galloped up the flank in support, dragging Walker with him.

But Izan didn’t need him this time.

He slotted a reverse pass into Martinelli’s feet near the byline.

“Here come Arsenal again!” Drury called. “It’s relentless!”

Martinelli, already halfway into a sprint, didn’t hesitate.

One look up and he saw Saka was arriving in the box from the other side of the pitch.

He whipped it in first-time, low and quick across the face of the goal—devastating in its intent.

Saka stretched, right foot out, eyes wide as he lunged to meet it.

He connected.

But the sound of the ball cannoning off the post was like a gunshot through the Etihad.

CLANG!

The ball bounced right back into the six-yard box, chaos unfolding, but Joško Gvardiol reacted quickest, hooking it away under pressure before anyone could pounce and gladly, the ball hit Havertz and went out for a goal kick.

“OHHH—so close!” Beglin groaned.

“That could’ve been three. Should’ve been three!” Drury gasped.

“Seconds after the second goal and Arsenal could’ve killed this game!”

The Arsenal end had erupted again, gasping in disbelief.

Hands in hair. Screams of the fans who were wondering how that ball didn’t give them a comfortable 2-goal cushion.

But also—electric energy. They could feel it.

The signs of dominance that their players were beginning to show.

The flow.

The pressure mounting on a Manchester City side rarely ever backed into their own box like this.

On the touchline, Arteta clapped twice and pointed forward.

“Keep going! Again! Again!”

Pep Guardiola, meanwhile, folded his arms.

His lips were tight.

And for the first time since the start of the match, he turned to his assistant, Juanma Lillo, and muttered something without eye contact.

The Etihad had fallen mostly quiet, save for the visiting support, roaring in song, seizing every ounce of momentum.

“I’m no prophet, but I don’t need anyone to tell me that the next one might be going in. What an escape.”

City restarted with an urgency masked by their usual composure—their passes crisp, rhythmic, fluid.

Ederson tapped it short to Dias, who rolled it to Akanji.

The tempo slowed, but it wasn’t stalling—it was simmering, like a beast ready to uncoil.

Arsenal pressed high, relentless, hunting the ball like a pack, but City were slipping through the cracks.

Jim Beglin observed keenly from the booth, “This is what they do when things threaten to spiral—back to basics. Keep the ball. Make the opponent chase.”

And chase Arsenal did.

Kovacic, dropping deep beside Dias, helped link the midfield, with Gündogan and Bernardo Silva rotating like gears in a machine.

Rodri may have been out, but the philosophy hadn’t left with him.

The ball zipped from one foot to the next. Left, right, back, forward.

Like a memory of Barcelona.

Arsenal’s press, though brave, couldn’t latch on.

“City slowing the pulse of the game now,” Peter Drury remarked.

“They’re weaving their spell, denying Arsenal the chaos they crave.”

And it almost paid off minutes later after Bernardo turned away from Rice near the halfway line and slid a pass through to Savio, who quickly switched to Doku.

The winger took on Timber, jinking past him with a half-stutter, half-stepover that created just enough room.

He fizzed it low toward the far post—too hard for Haaland to meet, but it reached the Norwegian anyway after a deflection off Calafiori’s shin.

Haaland shifted onto it instinctively, dragging it across his body with one touch, then snapping at it with his left foot—low, angled, with just enough venom to send hearts lurching.

The ball skidded across the goal, and Raya rooted to the spot.

It whispered past the far post.

Just.

A ripple of gasps cascaded through the stadium, the Arsenal fans freezing mid-chant while City’s faithful stood halfway out of their seats.

“OOOOOH!” Beglin exclaimed. “You thought that was in!”

Peter Drury: “From our angle… I saw the net move. But no—wide. Just wide. Erling Haaland, by a blade of grass.”

Raya, still frozen from the shot, slowly exhaled and trotted to place the ball for a goal kick, shaking his head with a rueful smile.

The camera panned to Pep Guardiola, who didn’t flinch, only clapped—twice—then pointed forward.

Arsenal’s players exhaled too, exchanging glances.

That was a warning.

A subtle one.

A brutal one.

But the message was clear: Manchester City were far from done.

A/N; The Last chapter of the day. Have fun reading.

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