Chapter 636: Ticked Off!

Down the pitch, the referee called Leo over.

"That’s your warning," he told him firmly.

"You got the ball, but you went through the player as well. Don’t give me another one like that."

Leo listened with his eyes fixed on the official’s face.

He nodded at the appropriate moments, though his attention had already begun to drift back towards the pitch.

He knew the challenge had been reckless, but he also knew he had stopped a promising United attack.

Both things could be true.

The referee turned away and awarded United a throw-in much to the ire of the United fans in the stadium.

Garnacho was cleared to continue, and the players began moving into position again.

Dalot retrieved the ball and tossed it back to the winger, and like a ghost, Leo was waiting.

The moment Garnacho controlled the throw, Leo came at him again, sliding in with his right leg extended.

Perhaps affected by the earlier challenge, the Argentine hopped away, leaving Leo to reach the ball cleanly.

After that, he scooped it away from Garnacho’s feet and kept it just inside the touchline.

Garnacho jumped over the challenge, landed awkwardly but safely, then turned to see Leo already carrying the ball away.

The winger’s expression hardened, and he chased after him.

Perhaps it was the earlier tackle still bothering him.

Perhaps he simply refused to let Leo escape so easily.

Whatever the reason, Garnacho launched himself into a slide of his own, aiming to stop the Wigan midfielder before he could turn upfield.

The winger got closer and closer by the millisecond and would have caught Leo, but the latter had already anticipated this kind of reaction.

Without slowing, he caressed the ball with the outside of his right boot, and leaned to his right, slipping just beyond Garnacho’s reaching leg.

Then in one smooth motion, he pivoted around the challenge, leaving the winger sliding across the grass while he emerged on the other side with the ball still under control.

"Ohhh, that’s clever from Calderon!" Bower exclaimed.

"It’s almost like he has eyes at the back of his head."

With Garnacho out of the way, Dalot stepped across to close the remaining space, trying to use Leo’s momentum against him, but he was way in over his head.

The ball was too.

Without slowing, Leo hooked his left leg under the ball and lifted the ball over the full-back with a deft touch, sending it into Carlo’s path beyond the challenge.

"Wonderful touch! He’s beaten Garnacho and lifted it over Dalot in the same movement!"

Carlo took the ball on the run and drove towards the right edge of the penalty area.

Casemiro began retreating to cover, while the United centre-backs shuffled across to cover Jake’s run.

Carlo reached the edge of the box and still lifted a cross towards the middle despite the obstruction, and just like earlier, Jake rose.

He climbed above the defender beside him, using his strength to hold his position before driving his forehead through the ball.

The contact was clean, sending it rocketing towards the bottom corner.

Onana dropped quickly, but the goalkeeper got nowhere near it.

Still, the ball struck the inside of the post and rebounded across the face of goal.

For a fraction of a second, it looked as though United might survive, but Reyes had other ideas.

The midfielder had followed the attack into the box, and he reacted before anyone else could.

He lunged towards the rebound and poked it over the line from close range, and in that split second, the net rippled.

"GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLL!"

The DW erupted as Reyes immediately turned towards the goal, snatched the ball out and tucked it beneath his arm.

He didn’t even glance towards the stands.

He simply ran back towards the centre circle, gesturing for his teammates to hurry and continually behind him, the DW faithful were roaring.

"REYES! WIGAN HAVE ONE BACK!" Bower shouted.

"What a response! Leo Calderon starts it with a brilliant piece of skill, Carlo delivers the cross, Jake strikes the post, and Reyes is there to bury the rebound!"

"The home fans are ecstatic."

"That’s an incredible bit of play from Leo. Garnacho goes in, he gets out of it, then he beats Dalot with that little lift. Two defenders taken out of the game in a matter of seconds. And Wigan make them pay!"

As they spoke, the scoreboard changed high up in the stadium’s upper coffers.

WIGAN 1–2 MANCHESTER UNITED.

Wigan had scored with their second shot on target.

The away crowd, which had been singing confidently only minutes earlier, fell noticeably quieter.

United’s players looked towards one another, several of them gesturing at the defence as if trying to establish how the attack had developed so quickly.

As Reyes jogged towards his half with the ball, Leo glanced at the scoreboard.

It wasn’t yet time to be glancing at the clock, but he did it anyway.

The half-hour mark was approaching.

A moment later, the referee’s whistle cut through the noise, snapping Leo out of his brief daze.

He turned towards the pitch as Manchester United prepared to restart, their players exchanging quick words before taking their positions.

United needed to settle things down.

They had been caught out by Wigan’s goal, and the last thing they wanted was to let the home side build on it.

For the next few minutes, they kept the ball moving between their defenders and midfielders, refusing to force anything.

The United midfield trio worked in tandem, offering themselves as outlets when needed and stripping Wigan of any chance to win the ball back immediately, killing the moment of the home team.

United played around it, and whenever a passing lane closed, they went backwards and started again.

It wasn’t pretty, but it was working.

For about five minutes.

Then Wigan decided they had seen enough.

Jake charged at the centre-backs, forcing them to hurry their passes.

Ezra and Carlo pushed high against the full-backs, while Reyes stepped forward to block the easy route into midfield.

Behind them, Leo and Tiehi squeezed the space available to United’s central players.

The pitch suddenly seemed much smaller.

United tried to work the ball out through the middle, but every receiver found a Wigan shirt closing in.

A pass that might have been comfortable ten minutes earlier now required a quick touch and an immediate decision.

The crowd at the DW Stadium sensed the change and grew louder with every hurried clearance until Dalot eventually found a way out

The right back collected the ball near the right side of United’s defence and carried it forward a few steps before looking inside.

Bruno Fernandes had dropped into space, so Dalot fed him a firm pass along the grass.