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Chapter 161: Delusional
🕑 Added 2025-09-29 14:48:49 +0000 UTC“What a shit show,” Kai muttered, his voice low but brimming with frustration. “Absolute rubbish.”
He slumped back on the bench, shaking his head. The refereeing had been so poor it almost felt deliberate. At one point, he’d wanted to stare the referee down and ask if he was even watching the same game.
Around the dressing room, the other Arsenal players wore tight, weary expressions, but none looked as angry as Kai.
“We talked about this before kick-off,” Koscielny said with a resigned sigh.
Kai raised an eyebrow. “You mean you expected the decisions to be this bad?”
Koscielny gave a half-shrug. “Don’t you know who was in charge tonight?”
“Not really. Should I?”
“It was Mike Dean,” Koscielny replied, a wry smile forming. “Long-time Spurs sympathizer—he’s never admitted it, but you can tell.”
Kai frowned. “How can you possibly know that?”
“Watch him when Tottenham score,” Koscielny said, chuckling despite himself. “He celebrates without even realizing. Little fist pumps, that sort of thing.”
Kai stared back, speechless. He’d known the officiating felt biased, but hearing it laid out like that made it sting even more.
But he officiated our matches before, so why is he acting out now in this season, Kai wondered.
Dean’s reputation preceded him. Among Premier League supporters, he was infamous, grouped with Clattenburg, Atkinson, and Oliver as poor officiators.
But Arsenal fans saved their sharpest words for Dean, convinced he reserved his worst calls for them. Over the years, petitions to the FA had gathered tens of thousands of signatures—one reached more than a hundred thousand—yet nothing ever changed. Tonight’s match was another bitter chapter.
The defeat dropped Arsenal to third place: a point behind Liverpool, four adrift of leaders Chelsea, and with Manchester City lurking just two points back. Every fixture from here on out would matter.
The club lodged its complaints, sending appeals to both the Premier League and the Football Association. The responses were polite but hollow. No action. No accountability. Arsenal would have to swallow the loss.
Kai found it hard to accept, but there was nothing for it except to turn the frustration into fuel.
…
Premier League – Round 22: Arsenal v Fulham
When Fulham arrived at the Emirates a week later, they walked into a storm. From the opening whistle, Arsenal attacked with purpose, as if the previous injustice had lit a fire.
It took only five minutes for the breakthrough. Kai collected the ball deep and spotted Suarez’s run. His long, raking pass cut through Fulham’s high line, and Suarez met it first time with a stunning volley. The ball flashed past the keeper before the away side could react.
Fulham, desperate to escape the relegation zone, had tried to press high and seize momentum. Instead, they were stunned, their plan in tatters.
Arsenal kept the pressure on. In the 19th minute, Cazorla danced through midfield and finished neatly to double the lead. Eleven minutes later, Mertesacker rose above everyone at a corner and powered in a header for 3–0. The Emirates crowd roared; the gloom of the previous week began to lift.
After the break, Arsenal grew even more ruthless. Just two minutes into the second half, Kai struck a thunderous shot from distance—his sixth Premier League goal of the season, an astonishing tally for a defensive midfielder and enough to push him into the league’s top-scorer conversation.
Fulham’s resistance crumbled. In the 67th minute, Arsenal produced a flowing move without the ball touching the turf: Kai won a header in midfield, Cazorla volleyed the pass forward to Walcott, and Walcott whipped in a cross for Suarez to dive and nod home his second of the night. Five-nil, and the visitors were beaten long before the final whistle.
With every goal, the Arsenal players celebrated by covering their eyes—a silent, unmistakable gesture of protest aimed at the officials who had wronged them the week before.
When the final whistle sounded, the scoreboard at the Emirates read 6–0.
Luis Suarez walked away with the match ball and a perfect ten rating, his hat-trick underlining a performance of relentless attacking flair. Around the stadium, the mood was electric, but every celebration carried a sharper edge. Time and again, the players covered their eyes after scoring—an unmistakable reference to the previous week’s officiating controversy.
The gesture lit a fuse in the press. Within hours, the talk of biased officiating was back on every back page.
Arsenal Fans
@NorthBankNed
🫣 Arsenal win 6–0, yet we’re still talking about last week’s robbery. FA should be ashamed. #DeanOut #COYG
@HighburyHelen
We could beat Fulham 10–0, and it still wouldn’t erase the farce at Villa Park. Blind as a bat, Dean. It’s always Arsenal.
@EmiratesEcho
100k+ signatures over the years and still nothing changes. Dean vs Arsenal is the oldest rivalry in the league.
@GunnersDaily
Love the boys covering their eyes after every goal. Message received. 👏 #JusticeForArsenal
Neutral Fans
@FootyThinker
Not an Arsenal fan, but I get why they’re upset. Dean’s track record with them is… suspicious. Maybe the FA needs to rotate refs more carefully in big fixtures.
@TacticsNTea
From a neutral perspective, Arsenal have a point about consistency. But blaming everything on Dean oversimplifies it. Better officiating systems, please.
@PremierChatPod
The eye-cover celebration is iconic already. Whatever side you’re on, it’s football theatre at its finest.
Rival Fans
@BlueLion187
Arsenal moaning again? If you put the chances away, you don’t leave it to the ref. Classic Gooners.
@SpursAndProud
Mike Dean did his job. Maybe Arsenal should stop diving and start defending. #COYS
@MancInTheStand
Refs have bad games, sure. But this conspiracy stuff is pure Arsenal victim complex.
@VillaTillIDie
We played hard, within the rules. Dean called it fair. Sorry, the Emirates crowd can’t handle a proper challenge.
Public opinion swelled. Phone-ins, columns, and fan forums all hammered the same point: Arsenal were playing too well to be beaten fairly. Under that pressure, the Football Association finally issued a statement—but it wasn’t the apology or review many supporters wanted.
Instead, the FA released the FA Cup fourth-round draw.
The pairing jumped off the page: Arsenal v Aston Villa.
To the Arsenal squad, it felt almost poetic. The very team whose roughhouse tactics and controversial win had sparked so much anger would be coming to the Emirates. If the FA had hoped to deflect attention, they had done the opposite.
“We’ll gladly take that,” one staff member was overheard saying as the draw went public.
Over in Birmingham, the reaction was very different. Aston Villa officials grumbled about a loaded draw and even hinted at manipulation.
Facing Arsenal, in this mood, was “like being told to walk into a lion’s den,” a local columnist wrote. After a brief protest, Villa went quiet—presumably after a few private phone calls from the league office.
...
As the tie approached, Sky Sports ran a player-by-player interview special. The intent was clear: they started with the Arsenal squad.
Per Mertesacker opened with a wry smile.
“I still remember Benteke and Agbonlahor closing in from both sides. Honestly, it felt less like football and more like stepping into an MMA cage. My ribs still ache when I think about it.”
Laurent Koscielny followed, voice edged with steel.
“That match was an insult to the sport. At times, it didn’t even resemble football.”
Luis Suarez leaned forward, animated.
“I lost count of the times I was pulled or tripped in the box. Every run, there was a boot or an arm. Nothing given.”
Santi Cazorla let out a short laugh that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Thirteen fouls on me alone. Not a single booking. Incredible, isn’t it?”
Theo Walcott added dryly:
“People say Mike Dean’s a strict referee. If I say more, I am in trouble.”
Finally, the cameras turned to Kai, calm but unmistakably determined.
“Talking about that match won’t change the result. We accepted the decision because we had no choice, but that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten. We’re not finished.”
He paused, then gave a faint, knowing smile.
“I’m looking forward to this next one. Tell me—have you ever seen a centre-forward go ninety minutes without a single shot? You might soon.”
The studio fell quiet for a beat after the recording ended. Kai’s words carried a quiet menace that every viewer felt.
When Benteke was asked about this in the Sky Sports player interview for Aston Villa, he replied with a single word, “Delusional.”
…
Fans debated the comment all week. Was Kai promising to shadow Christian Benteke out of the game entirely? Analysts reminded everyone how difficult that task would be. Benteke, after all, was a proven Premier League striker with strength and aerial dominance.
Yet those same analysts admitted that if anyone could do it, it was Kai. His recent run of form had made life miserable for opposing forwards. Marked by him, strikers rarely found a yard of space.
