Anfield held its breath.
Every eye locked onto the one-on-one between Julien and Szczęsny.
The goalkeeper charged off his line, weight pressed forward and low, eyes drilling into the ball at Julien's feet, ready to smother every possible angle.
Julien was eerily calm. He didn't rush the shot.
Instead, in the instant he closed on the keeper, he flicked the ball up with the very tip of his right boot. It floated into the air and sailed clean over Szczęsny's head.
Szczęsny leapt as high as he could, desperate to get a touch.
But Julien's chip was perfectly weighted. The apex of its arc hung just above the goalkeeper's outstretched hands making it utterly unreachable.
The ball dropped with precision into the empty net.
Goal!
Another goal!
The 27th minute—Julien's second of the night!
Just three minutes had passed since he broke the deadlock in the 24th.
Three minutes, two goals.
Anfield erupted.
The stands roared as one in chants of: "Julien! Julien!"
The chant rose in a single voice, deafening, thundering up into the Merseyside sky.
The moment the ball hit the net, Julien spun and sprinted toward the touchline, carving a clean sliding path across the turf. He rose fluidly to his feet and spread his arms wide toward the terraces, grinning from ear to ear.
"Two goals in three minutes—and this is Arsenal!"
In the stands, fans fell into each other's arms, screaming.
Some of the older fans were in tears, punching the air with trembling fists, pouring out years of longing all at once.
'Maybe this season was finally it. Maybe this team could really win it all.'
Anfield became an ocean of red colours.
His teammates came speeding toward him and crashed into Julien in a wild, heaving embrace.
De Bruyne pressed close, his voice sounded heavy with disbelief: "That was fast, mate. Two goals in three minutes—Arsenal's backline doesn't know what hit them!"
Julien laughed and pushed him away playfully, letting the chaos of his teammates swallow him whole, savouring every second of it.
"Julien! Julien again! My God—two goals in three minutes! Julien has torn Arsenal's defence to ribbons with a masterclass performance! There is no stopping him! Absolutely no stopping him!"
Martin Tyler's voice crackled with awe.
"From ghosting past Özil to shake off Wilshere, to the blistering full-speed run, to that ice-cold chip—every single touch Julien made was flawless. Arsenal's backline crumbled in front of him like paper. Like wet paper.
Arsenal are in serious trouble now! Not even half an hour has gone and they're two-nil down, facing a Julien De Rocca in this kind of form and a Liverpool side in full flow.
A comeback from here? Wenger needs to think of something—fast—"
On the touchline, Wenger stood and watched Anfield's celebration.
He watched Julien's sliding celebration, that figure growing brighter with every chant that followed it—all that swagger and joy and breathtaking confidence.
It hit him like a sudden beam of light.
He stood with his arms folded; coat collar stirred by the wind. His face held no panic. Something in him had silently let go.
His gaze drifted toward that young Frenchman basking in the crowd's adoration.
And then, without any warning, a memory took over.
The present fell away, and the roar of Anfield grew distant.
Highbury.
The old stadium surfaced first warmly in afternoon light.
Bergkamp in red and white, conjuring a turn inside the penalty area that seemed to bend time itself—the ball seemed glued to his boot, slowly, effortlessly gracefully as though he alone could make the game slow down.
Then Henry: a young man chasing the wind, charged down the left flank before cutting inside and unleashing that signature strike, the one that always sent the North Bank mad.
That Arsenal. The flowing triangles, the devastating attack, the players who seemed to understand one another without words.
Every sprint. Every goal.
Carrying the same careless brilliance, the same certainty that Julien carried now.
'Those were the golden years.'
Vieira commanding midfield. Pires and Ljungberg burning down the flanks. Campbell as an immovable wall at the back—
That team had not just talent at its core, but solid depth. Even the squad players, when called upon, held the shape, sustained the style, and delivered their own moments of beauty. They swept through the Premier League like a force of nature becoming the Unbeaten Invincible Champions.
The real thing. A side that could look any giant in the eye.
The faint trace of a smile touched Wenger's lips. He was back there, briefly—in the years when he believed. When the team he built with his own hands played football so beautiful it felt like something you should be charged admission to see.
When he was at the touchline himself, punching the air, eyes burning with the hunger for more. When he was Klopp.
Then the shards of memory broke apart.
Anfield's noise punched back through the silence and dragged him into the present.
Julien and his teammates celebrating, arms around each other—the image held up a mirror, and what it showed was today's Arsenal: diminished.
The world still called them a big club.
The squad still had players of rare talent—Özil, Wilshere, Ramsey—
But the squad was thin. Brutally thin.
A packed fixture list had worn the starters down to the bone, while the depth players couldn't carry the weight when asked. Injuries had arrived in rolls. Wenger's options had narrowed week by week.
Here, now, facing a Julien in this kind of form, watching the backline buckle again and again—he had nothing left to throw at the problem.
A soft exhale.
He had tried to rebuild the golden era. He had poured himself into developing young talent. But reality had pushed back every time—the financial strain, the departures, the constant drip of injuries were slowly blunting every edge the team had.
The Arsenal of today still belonged in the title conversation. But it had none of the old command. More often than not it was the players' individual quality and sheer stubbornness that held things together—not the ruthless united force of those unbeaten seasons.
Tweet!
The referee's whistle cut through everything and pulled Wenger back completely.
He exhaled.
He turned his eyes to the pitch. Whatever came before, the match continued. As he had told the press—when you are where they are, you fight for everything.
He buried the melancholy and gestured sharply forward: "Push up! All of you."
Özil stopped drifting through midfield and began driving forward into Arsenal's attacking third.
Wilshere and Arteta quickened the tempo of their passing combinations.
Down the flanks, Chamberlain and Cazorla abandoned any thought of tracking back, committing fully to the attack. Apart from the two centre-backs, almost the entire Arsenal backline had crossed the halfway line.
The intent was obvious.
On the other side, Klopp moved swiftly from his technical area. He shelved the relentless high press that had defined the first half hour and indicated to pull the shape back, keeping all three lines compact and close together.
Gerrard and Kanté dropped deep to the edge of the area, building a double defensive screen. Piszczek and Cissokho narrowed their runs, focusing on the advancing Arsenal wingers. Van Dijk commanded the back line, tracking Giroud's every movement.
It was simple; just lock it down. Then hit them on the break.
The 30th minute brought Arsenal their best chance of the new assault.
Özil received Arteta's pass in the midfield, slipped Kanté's challenge, and sent a first-time ball into the run of Cazorla on the left. Cazorla drove to the edge of the area and cut it back across goal for Giroud but Van Dijk was there first and deflected it behind for a corner.
The corner swung in.
Mertesacker attacked it with a firm header. The ball flew over the bar.
A strangled roar came from the away end.
Arsenal kept coming. Özil's intricate passing was threading the attack together. Wilshere kept cutting inside, causing problems.
But Klopp's adjustments were holding. Liverpool's shape stayed tight, defenders were shifting across and covering for each other giving Arsenal no clean shooting lanes.
And whenever Arsenal pressed too high, Liverpool punished them.
In the 33rd minute, Van Dijk won the ball and found Gerrard, who lifted a long diagonal pass straight to Piszczek on the right. As Piszczek moved forward, Julien had already angled his run through the centre. A quick two-against-one exchange was made with all instinct and proper timing.
Julien received it back, cut inside, and left Sagna sprinting.
He then pulled himself and sent it across the area where Suárez arrived running—only for Koscielny to hurl himself across and block the shot. The ball ricocheted out to the right.
Julien collected it. He kept running, kept prodding with his feet, feinting his way around Arteta's covering challenge.
He drove a low strike at the near post. Szczęsny was equal to it this time, diving full length to gather cleanly.
Julien gave a brief shake of his head.
A small groan of sympathy from around the stadium.
Liverpool had executed the counter beautifully. Just a fraction of luck was missing.
Arsenal undiscouraged maintained their intensity. They had no other choice.
In the 36th minute, Özil slid another beautiful through-ball, Giroud held it up and laid off first-time, and Chamberlain arrived from deep to let fly from range.
The shot was heading for the top corner—Mignolet flung himself sideways and tipped it onto the bar. Liverpool survived again.
From the goal kick, Van Dijk pumped a long ball forward.
Julien brought it down in the midfield, sensed Wilshere pressing from behind, and sold him a shoulder drop that moved Wilshere one way while the ball went the other.
He accelerated, drawing two defenders in, before sliding it to Henderson on the left side of the pitch. Henderson lashed in a cross. Suárez met it with his head, the ball drifted narrowly wide of the far post.
The Arsenal players exchanged wide-eyed looks.
'That was far too close.'
The counterattack had happened in a blink—back post to front door before their defence could reset.
Martin Tyler was in full voice: "Oh my God! That Liverpool counter is terrifying! From the clearance to a genuine chance on goal—the speed of it! Arsenal couldn't even think, let alone react!
And Julien's quality is just something else. The combination play, the ability to take a man on, the composure in front of goal—he is Liverpool's engine on the break. He can finish it himself or he can make it for someone else. There is no answer to him.
Arsenal are completely trapped now. If they sit back, they lose quietly. If they push forward, they haemorrhage space at the back—and we've just seen how quickly Liverpool can exploit that. They have to keep attacking; the two-goal deficit gives them no alternative. But every time they do…
Klopp's decision to drop off and contain has dissected Arsenal's weaknesses with precision. Every time Liverpool win the ball, it becomes a knife going straight through.
Julien is unplayable right now—Arsenal have found absolutely nothing to hold him and time is running out for Wenger. If they go into the dressing room two goals down at half-time, the second half becomes almost impossible—"
Tyler barely had time to breathe.
The match shifted again.
With Arsenal desperate to pull one back, Özil and Wilshere were taking turns carrying the ball through midfield, probing for a crack in Liverpool's low block.
But as Wilshere turned to play his pass, Kanté closed in hard from behind—pressing his body into him before he could settle and the moment Wilshere's touch wavered, Kanté stripped him clean.
Kanté immediately fed the ball back to his captain.
Gerrard didn't hesitate.
He had already read everything ahead of him: Sagna had pushed forward and not tracked back; Mertesacker and Koscielny were too narrow and as a result a vast corridor of space had opened behind Arsenal's defence.
He had also seen Julien's gesture.
Boom!
Gerrard launched a precise diagonal ball without a second thought. It arced through the air, curling into the empty space behind Arsenal's back line.
Julien had broken into a run the moment Gerrard's foot was through the ball.
By the time Mertesacker registered what was happening, he was already two steps behind and falling further back with every sprint.
As the ball dropped, Julien cushioned it on his chest and knocked it forward in one graceful motion.
He was gone.
Koscielny scrambled to cut him off from the side and was left half a yard short by the sheer pace of Julien's acceleration.
One touch. One run. And Julien was through on goal—one-on-one with Szczęsny, who came charging out.
This time Szczęsny threw himself down, trying to smother everything.
Julien didn't go for glory.
The angle was tight, and Szczęsny had read it well this time.
So, Julien did the simple thing: a gentle right-foot push, sweeping the ball sideways into the centre of the pitch.
Suárez was already flying in at full speed behind him. Arteta tried to intervene. But the net was empty.
Suárez rolled it home.
Goal!
At 39th minute, Liverpool 3–0 Arsenal.
Boom!
The roar that followed seemed to lift the roof off Anfield.
Liverpool's supporters hadn't dared imagine the afternoon unfolding like this—not against Arsenal, not like this.
The shock of it only made the joy more violent.
On the pitch, Suárez turned away and pointed straight at Julien, beaming from ear to ear.
The two of them ran side by side toward the touchline stand, raising their hands to the crowd.
Gerrard, De Bruyne, and the rest flooded in behind them, swallowing them in a wild, laughing huddle.
"Suárez taps it into the empty net!" Tyler was shouting now. "Liverpool three, Arsenal nil at Anfield! Oh my!
If someone had told me before kick-off that Liverpool would go into half-time three goals to the good against Arsenal, I would not have believed a single word of it.
This Arsenal side has led the Premier League table for the better part of this season.
And yet—they are being beaten. Convincingly. In their own title race."
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