"They are not going to let him have it easy. Not tonight, not here. Izan talked boldly during the build-up, but this is Liverpool's response: You don't walk into their house and dictate the story without a fight."
Peter Drury's tone followed, weighty, reflective.
"And it is worth remembering, since the day he first started in an Arsenal shirt, they have never lost a match with him on the pitch. The aura, the numbers, the brilliance, it all feeds the legend. But this, this is the reality of Anfield. They will test him, they will bruise him, and they will see if seventeen can carry the burden of history."
Down on the pitch, Izan lay for a moment, blinking at the noise raining from the stands.
Boos, jeers, even a few chants thrown like daggers.
Yet there was something else, too, the undercurrent of fear wrapped inside the hostility.
They had come to know who he was and what he was capable of.
They knew what he could do.
