In the final few minutes, Arsenal came from behind to take the lead, practically driving Liverpool manager Hodgson half-mad.
"Damn it! That loathsome brat!" At that moment, Li Yufei had Hodgson grinding his teeth in frustration.
His team had been overturned at Anfield by their most direct rivals?
Hodgson could already imagine how the Fleet Street media would pile on after the match.
"No! We have to win this match!"
Once he had made up his mind, Hodgson shouted and gestured from the touchline for his team to attack more aggressively.
There was no point playing it safe now. They were already behind.
Losing by one goal earned them zero points; losing by two still earned them zero.
With that in mind, Liverpool had nothing to lose. They threw caution to the wind and went all out in a final desperate gamble.
As for considerations like goal difference, it was only the first round of the league, so there was no need to worry about that yet.
The 86th minute.
After conceding, Liverpool pushed forward in force, looking determined not to give up.
First, Gerrard unleashed a cannon shot from 30 yards out.
Almunia parried it, but the ball didn't travel far before Maxi collected it.
With Clichy tight on him, Maxi swept the ball to Torres inside the box.
Torres received the ball, turned, and shot in one fluid movement, using a single technical move to leave Vermaelen behind.
Fortunately, Koscielny had covered in time and blocked the shot just as Torres struck.
The ball hit Koscielny's leg and bounced toward the right side of the box.
Arsenal right-back Sagna brought it under control, then surged forward for 30 yards before threading a through ball to Walcott, who was already sprinting upfield.
The pass was played just ahead of him, and Walcott caught up to it without having to slow down.
By then, Agger, whom Walcott had beaten for pace several times already, simply couldn't keep up anymore.
Dozens of yards of open space stretched out before Walcott, so he drove straight into Liverpool's penalty area along a diagonal line.
On the other side, Li Yufei had already surged into the left side of Liverpool's box, even before Walcott.
Arshavin and Van Persie weren't about to be left behind. They both charged toward the middle of the box.
In an instant, Arsenal had four attackers against three defenders in Liverpool's half: Carragher, Skrtel, and Glen Johnson faced the four-man Arsenal forward line.
Seeing Walcott race straight to within just 20 yards of goal, Skrtel gritted his teeth. He had no choice but to abandon Arshavin, whom he'd been marking, and turn to stop Walcott.
For once, Walcott didn't get carried away. As Skrtel came to defend him, he passed the ball directly to Arshavin.
With no one on him for the moment, Arshavin made a slight adjustment as the ball rolled toward him, then drove a shot toward goal.
At the crucial moment, Reina made an unbelievable, acrobatic save, pinning the ball to the ground just in front of the goal line.
But Arshavin's shot had been hit with too much power from such close range.
Reina could pin the ball in front of the goal line, but he couldn't control where it went.
As the ball bounced up, it flew toward the left side of the goal.
Then, as if out of nowhere, Li Yufei appeared. Before anyone realized what was happening, he had sprinted into the ball's path.
With most of the goal wide open just a few feet away, Li Yufei lifted his leg and kicked the ball into the net with a motion more like a kick at an opponent.
There was nothing Reina could do about it. He raised his hands in surrender.
The moment Liverpool's players saw Li Yufei score, they hurriedly raised their hands to appeal to the referee, claiming he had been offside and the goal should be ruled out.
But the referee saw that the linesman hadn't raised his flag, so he blew his whistle and pointed to the center circle, signaling that the goal stood!
"GOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!"
"He's done it!!!"
"Number 13, Li Yufei, has scored again!"
"He's scored twice in his very first Premier League match!"
"And with that assist for Van Persie, this young man has been involved in three goals in less than 30 minutes on the pitch!"
"Remember, this is the Premier League, and his opponents are the Reds, Liverpool!"
"To put on such a dazzling performance in a match of this caliber against opponents like these is unbelievable!"
"We have every reason to believe that Li Yufei will become a world-class star in the near future!"
After Li Yufei scored his second goal, Wenger couldn't help applauding excitedly from the touchline.
To be honest, Li Yufei's efficiency in his first match had genuinely exceeded Wenger's expectations.
Wenger had thought that although Li Yufei was very talented, it would take time for that talent to show.
At this stage, his ability to contribute immediately would surely fall short of that of established players.
But now, that assumption had been seriously shaken.
Wenger would need more time to observe whether Li Yufei had simply hit a hot streak in this match, or whether this was simply how good he was...
After Li Yufei scored Arsenal's third goal, Liverpool collapsed completely.
Having played a man down since the first half, Liverpool had already done all they could just to hold on this long.
The second minute of stoppage time.
Diaby won the ball in midfield and passed it to Nasri, who surged upfield.
When he reached a spot 30 yards from goal, he saw that Liverpool's defenders still weren't closing him down. So he drew back his bow and let fly with a Long Shot.
The shot had plenty of power, but it was hit too centrally and shouldn't have posed much of a threat.
But whether it was because his confidence had collapsed or because of a blunder, Liverpool goalkeeper Reina fumbled it badly, and the ball rolled into the goal in the most unexpected fashion.
"Oh, my God!!!"
"Reina has made a howler at the very last moment. A low-level mistake like that should never happen to him."
"It's all over! Arsenal have scored three goals in the final 10 minutes and completely blown Liverpool away!"
"And the man most responsible for all of this is a young player who just made his league debut! It's like something out of a fairy tale!"
"Perhaps one day, when we look back, we'll be glad we happened to watch this match live."
"Because this may well mark the birth of a legendary player!"
"Beep, beep, beeeeeep—"
With two short blasts followed by a long one, the referee blew the final whistle.
Arsenal had beaten Liverpool 4–1 away from home!
It was quite an upset!
After all, although Arsenal looked stronger on paper than Liverpool, they weren't expected to win by such a huge margin as 4–1!
Especially at Anfield, the famous fortress known throughout England as a cauldron of a home ground. That made the result all the more remarkable.
All in all, after this match, Li Yufei had well and truly made a name for himself as a "genius."
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