The fourth official raised the electronic board, flashing a glowing red five into the Wembley twilight.
N'Golo Kanté remained glued to Rúben Neves's shoulder. Ninety-one minutes gone. Chelsea held a one-goal lead and a man advantage, yet the most relentless midfielder on earth was still strictly man-marking a boy who had touched the football exactly twenty-four times all afternoon.
Four minutes into the added five.
Neves stripped the ball from Pierre-Emile Højbjerg forty-five yards from the Chelsea goal. He paused. Then he pivoted and marched the opposite direction. He carried the ball away from the penalty area, walking deliberately toward our own corner flag with time bleeding out in a match Crystal Palace had been trailing for eighty minutes.
Kanté followed him. Kanté had shadowed his every footstep since the fortieth second, and Kanté's lungs do not burn at minute ninety-four.
Neves rolled the ball casually to Mamadou Sakho and kept walking.
