Tweet!
A single blast of the referee's whistle, and the top-of-the-table Premier League clash was officially underway.
The roar at Anfield surged instantly to its peak.
One thunderous wall of sound.
On the terraces, a sea of red rose and fell like a tide.
On the pitch:
Liverpool, in their home red, kicked off first. Arsenal stood ready in white.
Early on, both sides played with extreme restraint—each probing for the other's tactical shape, neither willing to commit. Even Liverpool kept the tempo slow without charging blindly forward.
The opening five minutes were to reconnaissance.
Liverpool controlled possession but never forced themselves into Arsenal's box. On the left flank, Julien set himself against Sagna in the first of many one-on-one exchanges. He worked the ball with continuous feints, his peripheral vision locked on his opponent's centre of gravity at all times.
The French right-back was a composed defender—solid, but slow to turn, with a habit of leaning left.
Julien's probing runs and fake moves weren't genuine attempts to break through; they were experiments. He was testing his read of the man, registering that information, costing Sagna small but cumulative amounts of energy. Each attempt was just barely repelled.
Arsenal used those spaces Liverpool ceded to build through Özil's short, sharp passes, hunting for counter-attacking seams. Chamberlain drove down the right with pace, trying to find an opening, but Cissokho and Van Dijk's combined cover-defending cut him off in time.
As the minutes ticked by, Liverpool gradually lifted the tempo.
Home advantage sharpened their edge.
Julien shouldered the burden of Liverpool's attack, becoming the most dynamic presence on the pitch. Dropping back into his free-roaming position ahead of the midfield, he shuttled constantly between the centre and both wings stretching Arsenal's defensive shape in all directions.
He had done his homework.
Arsenal's central defenders were slow to turn, and whenever the wide men were forced to cover, the centre always opened up.
So, Julien worked accordingly: at times cutting infield to link with De Bruyne and Suárez in triangles, short passes compressing the space around Arsenal's back line until Mertesacker was forced to step up and press; at other times drifting to the right to combine with Piszczek, deliberately drawing Monreal sideways to open a run-channel for Henderson.
Each movement was a small calculation.
Julien's sweeping runs put Arsenal's backline under constant strain.
Sagna, nominally his marker, was repeatedly dragged out of shape; the defensive line was forced into constant adjustment.
Liverpool exploited that disruption with growing fluency, the interplay between flanks and centre was sharpening with every exchange. The game plan Klopp had drawn up in the week was taking shape on the pitch.
Pressure was building on Arsenal's goal.
Then came Liverpool's most dangerous attack of the opening period.
Julien seized on the gap left by Sagna who had been pinned wide by Henderson and made a sudden diagonal run to the right, arriving in perfect timing with Piszczek's overlapping run.
The moment Piszczek received and played the cut-back, Julien had already anticipated the pass and turned in advance to receive with his body back into Wilshere, who was scrambling to recover.
He worked the ball with rapid directional changes: a feathered outside-of-the-boot touch to shake Wilshere loose, then a quick shift of weight to slip Arteta's lunging press, using his footwork frequency to skim past the challenge.
Arteta was left behind though not before trying to drive an elbow into Julien's kidneys as he burst through. Julien was faster, and veered clear.
Then cut inside.
Julien tried a late dummy as if to drive deeper, then chopped the angle open and, at the top of the D, met the incoming ball with a full-blooded drive aimed at the top right corner.
Thud—
The ball spun hard, arrowing for the roof of the net. Szczęsny moved too late.
It clipped the outside of the crossbar and flew over the byline.
It was a hair's breadth.
Ohhhhh—
Anfield erupted in a groan of anguish. Julien could only shake his head in helpless frustration.
Piszczek jogged over and clapped him on the back. Gerrard waved from distance and shouted: "stay sharp"
Julien nodded in reply, his eyes already moved back across Arsenal's back line.
Ten minutes of probing had taught him one thing clearly: Arsenal's defence was far more vulnerable than their reputation showed. That run had already planted the seed of doubt in them.
He settled back into position and began turning over the details of the attack in his mind.
Arsenal struck back quickly, Özil sent a penetrating vertical ball from the centre that found Giroud running off the shoulder. Giroud tried to muscle through a turn and shoot, but Van Dijk was pressed tight against him, giving him nothing easy. Still, Giroud forced the pivot and sent the effort wide of the post.
Van Dijk, after snuffing it out, immediately called his teammates back into shape with a wave.
The match settled into a grinding back-and-forth. Attack and defence, oscillation.
Julien remained Liverpool's axis. His restless movement continued to tease apart Arsenal's structure; his combinations with De Bruyne came close, more than once, to unravelling the entire defensive block.
Henderson's deliveries from the right, Piszczek's overlapping runs—they created danger in series. Suárez's darting runs inside the box kept Arsenal's centre-backs turning in circles.
Arsenal's counters had some teeth too. Özil's distribution repeatedly conjured danger; Julien had to admit; Özil's footballing intelligence was undeniable.
The crowd's emotions stayed at a constant rolling boil. Julien could hear his name occasionally chanted clearly from the stands:
"Julien! Julien!"
He knew. This stadium, these supporters—they had waited too long for a league title.
And he was the one who was going to give it to them.
The clock moved.
The twentieth minute arrived—the scoreline was still goalless.
Julien had no real sense of time passing. His mind was entirely occupied with reading Arsenal's shape.
Then he found it.
Monreal—busy suppressing Piszczek's runs had repeatedly pushed beyond the halfway line, leaving the space in behind him covered only by Koscielny. And Mertesacker with heavy legs and declining footwork had his slowness exposed to its limits. Once drawn into the body of the penalty area, he simply could not stay with quick feet.
Julien raised his hand, signalling De Bruyne and Piszczek with a brief tactical gesture.
He would draw the defensive line out of shape. Then he would tear the gap open.
Liverpool moved. De Bruyne drove forward through the centre, drawing a double press from Arteta and Wilshere. Piszczek accelerated down the right flank at full tilt, pinning Monreal firmly to the touchline.
Arsenal's back line buckled under the simultaneous pull. Koscielny instinctively slid right to cover Piszczek's crossing angle.
In the centre, only Mertesacker was left alone, marking Suárez.
That was the moment.
Julien moved.
Not down the left flank but slicing diagonally through the half-space into the centre. In the instant that Suárez claimed Mertesacker's attention, he drove straight for the box.
Mertesacker spun in desperate pursuit. His heavy body physique could not match the rhythm. Julien opened a half-metre gap in a single burst of sprint.
He had barely entered the penalty area when Koscielny, scrambling back to cover, came rushing straight at him—trying to use his body to shoulder Julien off the ball.
Julien didn't slow. His left foot drew the ball in in a fake cut-inside for goal.
Koscielny's weight lifted instinctively to follow.
In that fraction of a second—the instant his opponent's balance was committed; Julien dragged the ball back with a sharp pull. Koscielny lunged through thin air.
The penalty area was wide open.
Szczęsny came off his line, eyes locked onto the ball at Julien's feet.
Julien did not shoot. He smoothened as if to chip—forcing Szczęsny to push his hands up then, at the final moment before contact, nudged the ball one touch further forward instead.
The ball rolled past the onrushing goalkeeper.
Julien guided it home with the tip of his right foot.
An open net. And it was in.
With twenty-three minutes gone, Liverpool had broken the deadlock.
1–0.
Boom
BOOM—
A deafening roar erupted from Anfield. A red tide crashed across every stand.
Julien spun and sprinted to the corner flag.
He turned to face the terraces and threw his arms wide.
He tilted his head back slightly, letting the roar wash over him—every shout of his name a charge of pure energy. In this moment, he was Anfield's king. He was the hope burning in the hearts of every Red.
His teammates came for him in a rush. Suárez hit him first, leaping on his back; De Bruyne and Gerrard piled in behind. They bundled together at the corner flag in a tangle of red shirts, releasing the joy of breaking the deadlock in one long, unruly shout.
Julien was buried under the press of his teammates, the noise of the stadium was ringing in his ears, blood roared through his chest.
Arsenal's players trudged back to the centre circle with their heads low. Mertesacker and Koscielny exchanged a glance and found the same silent frustration reflected in each other's eyes. They had pushed themselves to the limit trying to keep pace with De Rocca. He had simply dismantled them.
Szczęsny hammered the goalpost with his fist.
On the touchline, Klopp could not contain himself. He drove his fist into the air, leapt forward, then spun around and pulled his assistant into an aggressive passionate embrace.
Wenger stood very still with only his hands clasped behind his back. Three deep lines were etched into his forehead.
He shook his head slowly.
Julien's goals were unstoppable. They always were.
This was the pure individual quality.
Meanwhile, the commentator was losing his voice,
"It's in! Julien! It's Julien! The twenty-fourth minute—Julien has broken the deadlock with a sublime solo effort!
This is Julien De Rocca. Pure, neat individual quality.
The link-up play on the outside, the movement with his teammates and then the drive into the box, the body feints, the composure to round the goalkeeper and slot into the empty net. Every single step was flawless.
Mertesacker and Koscielny were left spinning, completely unable to get close to his rhythm.
Szczęsny threw everything at the save and could only watch as the ball crossed the line.
This is what elite talent is worth: the ability to break a deadlock on pure individual brilliance when nothing else is working.
Arsenal's backline is in for a long afternoon.
Julien is on fire today—Liverpool's attack has only just begun, and Arsenal's defence faces a far greater test to come—"
The game restarted. Arsenal visibly accelerated.
The hunger to equalise was obvious on every player's face.
Özil, operating as the attacking engine, advanced through the centre with patience—his expression remained seemingly drowsy but his eyes never stopped sweeping Liverpool's defensive lines for any crack through which a killing pass might thread.
Julien dropped back to the edge of midfield; his gaze was fixed on Özil. The man's deadliest weapon was the vertical ball that arrived through apparent chaos, it was a lethal through-pass that seemed to come from nowhere.
Julien shifted his body sideways to block the angle, while gesturing at Kanté to compress the centre and cut the passing lane.
But Özil was no ordinary player. He had finished the previous season as the top assist provider in Europe.
In the very instant Kanté was about to step into position, Özil's foot nudged the ball once, gently and a diagonal through-ball split Liverpool's midfield. It landed perfectly in the path of Giroud who was arriving at the edge of the penalty area.
Giroud gathered, turned in a single movement without pause, holding off Kolo Touré's grip through his physical strength and launched a thunderous right-footed drive at goal.
Thud!
The ball skidded low, screaming toward the net.
At that precise instant, Van Dijk hurled himself to the ground, sliding in full length using his body as a human wall to block the shot.
The ball deflected away for a corner.
Özil collected the ball at the flag, settling it with his usual lazy calm. His eyes drifted across the cluster of bodies in the penalty area before whipping in a curling delivery—the ball dropped precisely onto Mertesacker's head.
Gerrard and Suárez both moved to crowd him. Van Dijk was planted solidly against Giroud, denying him the leap.
In the scramble, Kolo Touré got there first and headed clear—the ball arced high and out toward the perimeter but not far enough to end the danger.
Julien had read the clearance after it flew. He moved quickly to meet it, getting his foot to the ball the moment it bounced.
Wilshere launched himself from behind and to the side, lunging to intercept to cut off Liverpool's counter before it could begin.
Julien caught the challenge in his peripheral vision. In the instant before Wilshere's foot reached the ball, Julien flicked it left-to-right, then immediately dragged it back left.
Wilshere's weight went with the first movement. His body stumbled through and missed completely.
By then, Julien was already striding forward, the ball rolled ahead of him at full pace.
Arsenal had only Chamberlain left.
In that moment, the entire crowd at Anfield—every single person rose to their feet as one. Every set of eyes were locked on Julien.
They knew what he was capable of in the open field.
Give Julien a run like this and the goal was as good as scored.
Every fan felt it—felt their hands rising to their chests automatically.
'If it goes in, fling them up in celebration. If it doesn't, bury your face in them in despair.'
It was all one continuous motion—hope and heartbreak, primed and ready to go either way.
On the touchline, Wenger's eyes snapped immediately to Julien's charging figure, his stomach clenched tight.
He had spent a long time studying this player.
He knew exactly what it meant to hand Julien that much open space in a counter-attack.
He had only two hopes left.
Chamberlain. And Szczęsny.
Chamberlain dropped into a retreating defensive posture, tracking Julien's line, looking for the moment to throw his body across the run.
Julien gave him nothing to work with.
He knocked the ball forward in one single, decisive touch and just ran.
Pure speed. Nothing more.
Chamberlain went from jog to full sprint.
It made no difference.
Julien's figure simply drew further and further away.
What made Chamberlain's heart sink completely was: De Rocca actually bent his run took a slight arc to avoid the reaching hand and still left him behind.
Ohhhhh—
One intake of breath from the Anfield, then silence—absolute, held silence.
Julien was face-to-face with the goalkeeper.
________________________________________________________
Check out my patreon where you can read more chapters:
patreon.com/LorianFiction
Thanks for your support!