Chapter 663: Ultimatum.

Chapter 663: Ultimatum.

Arsenal weren’t leaning back after the restart.

They were already pressing.

Martinelli closed the angle from the left.

Trossard shadowed the midfielder in possession while Timber charged from behind with one of those long, relentless sprints that made him feel like a shadow that never faded.

Fulham barely reached the halfway line before Rice intercepted with a crunching body block and turned the ball forward again.

And who was already calling for it?

Izan — again.

Wearing that look of someone who hadn’t had enough.

It was getting tiring for Fulham, but they couldn’t do anything about it.

Even if they didn’t want to, they still had to chase in resignation.

That was the

Ultimatum

that came with playing against Izan.

The game had lulled slightly — not in pace, but in breakthrough.

Arsenal had control, but Fulham were stubborn.

They had doubled up on Izan since kickoff, kept bodies in the middle third, refused to let Arteta’s rhythm take hold.

From the main stand, three figures sat separated from the casual attire.

Arne Slot leaned forward, elbows on knees, gaze fixed.

To his right was Sipke Hulshoff, his assistant — calm, chewing gently on the edge of a biro.

Beside him, the youngest of the three, analyst Luuk van der Horst, was flipping through annotated pitch diagrams on a thin tablet screen.

Their focus was surgical.

Slot’s eyes hadn’t left Izan for more than five seconds at any stretch.

"This," Luuk muttered without looking up, "is where he tends to start drifting."

"No," Slot said, nodding slightly. "Not yet. He’s still central. Waiting for the collapse."

And as if summoned—

The crowd gasped.

Izan had just nicked the ball off a loose touch in midfield — a Fulham pass played too lazily into Lukić’s feet, and suddenly, like flipping a switch, the entire energy of the match changed.

"Here he goes again!"

the commentator cut in sharply, voice rising.

Izan’s first touch was clean, while his second knocked it past the second marker.

Two Fulham shirts turned instinctively — trying to trap him again — but he didn’t go wide.

He went

through

.

Like a runner hitting acceleration just before the bend, Izan burst past Lukić, then skipped through a loose foot from Berge.

The ball never left his feet, but his shape was all imbalance and danger — like he was falling forward and yet always in control.

Slot sat up straighter, seeing this while Hulshoff stopped chewing.

"It’s Izan!"

"Slaloms past one — past two!—"

"He’s into the final third now!"

Anderson backed off.

Fulham’s centre-back didn’t want to dive in.

Not with grass behind him.

Not with Martinelli charging in from the left.

But hesitation was poison, and Izan sold him with a sudden body feint as his right shoulder dipped and his left leg swept the ball just a fraction wide—

"He’s inside the box!" the

commentator bellowed.

Izan slipped the ball onto his right, just for a moment, before pulling his right leg back to complete the feint motion, but the entire Fulham back line jolted.

Then with exquisite calm, he transferred it to his left with a rolling drag, eyes already scanning.

Martinelli had appeared like a ghost on the edge of the six-yard box, arriving late.

The pass was perfect.

Subtle, almost invisible in the motion.

Izan nudged it across with the inside of his boot, threading it just ahead of Martinelli’s step.

It wasn’t a no-look pass — it was worse.

It was a

know-you’re-there

pass.

Martinelli struck it clean — across his body with the inside of the left foot.

The ball nicked through Leno’s legs and should have been a goal.

But it slowed.

Agonisingly.

It dribbled, half-spun and almost rolled over the line, but Cuenca’s sliding clearance arrived.

"Cleared off the line!"

"Cuenca rescues Fulham!"

A collective roar erupted.

Some from relief, some from frustration, some from sheer adrenaline.

A few Arsenal fans were on their feet, hands in their hair as they could’ve sworn that the ball had crossed over the line, but a quick glance at the official made them think otherwise.

Back in the stand, Slot didn’t blink for several seconds.

"He won’t score every time," he said finally.

"But the structure—look at what that run did."

Hulshoff exhaled. "They can’t trap him. We already know that since we’ve used the same thing against him twice since the start of the season, and it didn’t work."

He paused, as if he was recollecting something before continuing.

"Maybe we could try what Maresca did, but that only kept Arsenal silent and not Izan. We put too many players on him, and we let his mates free. You do the vice versa, and you let the monster on the loose."

Luuk nodded, highlighting on the tablet.

"His runs always does something to teams, and is doing it here too. Whenever he moves, he drags his opponents with him. For example, against this team, his runs trigger three players. Berge, Lukic, and Cuenca all collapse. That’s what frees Martinelli or whoever is there."

"Mm," Slot murmured. "We don’t man-mark him. That’s suicide."

He turned to Hulshoff.

"We cut the line before the ball gets to him. Defending from the front. If Salah and the other attackers drop behind his deep drops, we can put more players on him without much risk, and if we were to win the ball, a fast break from Salah, Gakpo or even Darwin, who is very hardworking and pacey, could be detrimental to them."

"And if he drifts wide?"

Slot gave the smallest smile.

"Then he’s not scoring. I’ll take that."

Below them, play resumed.

Arsenal still had the momentum.

But the message had been sent by the boy with the number 10 on his back.

And Liverpool had seen enough to know:

He wasn’t just the system.

He was the glitch in it.

And stopping him might take more than tactics.

....

45’

It had been a first half of flickers — teasing flashes of brilliance that never quite combusted.

Arsenal’s intensity never dipped, but their rhythm lacked the final blow.

Crosses zipped in without conviction, shots rose too early or dragged just wide.

Still, the Emirates stayed loud, stayed leaning forward, willing another moment to break loose.

And yet, that moment — the only one that truly mattered — had come and gone some minutes ago.

Now, as the referee glanced at his watch and lifted the whistle to his lips, the rhythm ground to a halt.

Halftime.

The blast cut through the murmur of chants and shouts.

Arms slumped as the players slowed to a jog.

Fulham’s defenders exchanged a few frustrated gestures while Arsenal’s midfield gathered into a loose knot near the centre circle.

Rice tapped Ødegaard’s shoulder as they moved toward the tunnel, both still mid-conversation and at the far end, Timber clapped his hands twice and gave a firm nod in Izan’s direction, the pair moving in sync toward the mouth of the stadium.

The camera caught the slow fade of the Emirates: rows of fans rising from their seats, flags fluttering in brief lulls of wind, and the glow from the LED boards circling the ground like a heartbeat.

The commentary threaded itself naturally through the quiet tension, not intruding, just narrating.

"For all the fireworks in that first forty-five, there’s only one piece of true damage on the scoreboard — and you guessed it, it came from the feet of Izan. Goal number 41, and this kid just can’t keep scoring. I always feel numb to his plays just before a match begins, but then he comes out like a scriptwriter and then does something we don’t see every day or don’t see at all. The rest of the half? Beautiful, sure. Electric, even. But eye candy."

His co-commentator took everything, nodding at his words before giving a piece of his own.

"Well, James, you can’t say Fulham haven’t shown grit. They’ve held their line, absorbed pressure, cleared off the line once or twice — especially that last one. Inches from being two-nil. But for now... It’s just the one."

"Arsenal lead at the break. One goal to nil. But something tells me there’s more to come, and Marco Silva and his men are in for a ride here at the Emirates"

Behind that voice, the screen replayed it again: Izan gliding past one, two, three shirts, dragging the ball onto his right boot with the lightest touch, before sliding it across to Martinelli on his left — the Brazilian thumping the shot low.

A deflection, a keeper’s outstretched leg, and then Cuenca scrambling it away just in time. No second goal. Just another gasp.

As the players disappeared down the tunnel, and the crowd thinned toward the food stalls and staircases, there was still a kind of charge in the air — like the stadium hadn’t quite exhaled from what it had seen.

A match not decided, but it looked all but certain.

A/N: OKay, guys. This is number 4. 1 more Chapter and we catch up to the schedule. I am drained so we might have to do the first Chapter of tomorrow after the 5th release later during the day.