Glory Of The Football Manager System

Squeak.

THE SQUAD.

I put the names up in blocks and stood back and looked at the holes, and there are 2 and they have both been there since the 6th of June.

No 3rd goalkeeper. Pope and Hennessey and a 19-year-old called Ryan Fletcher who is not ready for a Carabao tie at Bolton in October, and if Pope goes over in September we are finished.

And no right back. Aaron is 20. He is going to be the best defender in this country inside 2 years and he cannot play 63 games, and nobody in that building can do his job for 20 of them.

That is the window. 2 players and 20 days.

And the money is not the problem, whatever anybody writes this week. We have got 130 million pounds sat in an account and a chairman who has told me twice to go and spend some of it.

The problem is the list.

Because here is the thing about the European Cup that nobody at this club has ever had to think about. I did not think about it either until a UEFA circular came out of that post tray this morning.

You do not register a squad. You register 25 men. That is List A, and it is the only list that counts, and 25 is 25.

Of those 25, 8 have to be locally trained. Of those 8, at least 4 have to be club-trained, meaning 3 years on our own books between 15 and 21.

And if we have not got 4 club-trained men, we do not get to swap somebody else’s in. We leave the seats empty and walk into a group with Real Madrid registering 21 players against their 25.

So I put that on the board too, and it is the only part of the morning that frightened me.

Zaha. Wan-Bissaka. Tyrick Mitchell. Nya Kirby.

Exactly 4, with nothing behind them, and one of those is a 19-year-old left back who has played 40 minutes of senior football in his life.

If Aaron goes over in September I am not short of a right back. I am short of a right back and a European registration at the same time, and there is not a chequebook in England that fixes the second one.

Which means the 2 men I buy in the next 20 days cannot only be good. One of them has to have spent 3 years in an English academy before he turned 21.

There are not many of those going in August, and every club in this country with a European place wants the same 9 players.

I put the marker down and looked at the board.

63 matches. 18 men. 1 shape. No penalty taker. 2 holes. 25 places, and 4 club-trained men to fill 8 of them.

And 16 days.

There was a knock at the door.

Not Sarah’s knock. Sarah does not knock.

”Come in.”

And in came a lad of 22, changed and taped and ready 90 minutes before he needed to be, who I have paid 10 million pounds for and never once shaken hands with.

Jack Grealish looked at me, and then at the board, and then at the board again, and I watched him read it.

”Sorry, gaffer. Sarah said not to. I have come anyway.”

”How long have you been here?”

”Half 7.”

”It is 20 to 11.”

”Yeah.” He did not have an answer for that and did not pretend to.

”Sit down.”

He sat down in Steve Parish’s low chair and looked immediately like he regretted it.

”Right. Before anything else.” I put the marker down. ”I bought you off a video, a phone call and 3 conversations with Dougie Freedman, and I have not been in the country since the 31st of May. That is not how it should have gone and I am not going to pretend otherwise.”

”It is fine.”

”It is 7 weeks of a lad turning up to a building where nobody who signed him is in it.”

”Bray has been unbelievable,” he said, fast, like he was defending somebody. ”Every day. And Marcus has done my clips with me twice a week and he did not have to.”

”Good.”

And then he did the thing I had been waiting for since Moscow.

”Gaffer, can I ask you about England.”

”No.”

He blinked.

”Not today, and not because I am dodging you.” I sat on the edge of the desk. ”8 days ago I coached 11 men to beat England and I was good at it and I enjoyed it. That is the answer. You can have it now and you never have to ask me again.

”And the reason you were not in that squad is nothing to do with me and everything to do with you being in the Championship in May.

”You are not in the Championship now. Ask me about that instead.”

He went red and he did not look away, and I liked him for it.

”Right.”

”Now get up and look at this board, because you are 22 and you have been in this building since half 7 and I have got a problem I cannot solve.”

He came off that chair fast.

I pointed at WHO TAKES THEM.

”Milivojević has gone to West Ham. He took 8 penalties last season and scored 8. Who takes the next one?”

”Luka took them.”

”Luka is at West Ham, Jack.”

He looked at that board for 20 seconds. Most 22-year-olds do not look at anything for 20 seconds.

”Do you want the honest one or the one that gets me in the team?”

”Guess.”

”Benteke should not take them,” Grealish said. ”He will want to. He is the number 9 and he scored 15 the year before last and he will stand there and hold his hand up, and he is not the best in that building at it and everybody in that dressing room knows it.”

”Go on.”

”James.” He tapped the board where I had the front 3. ”He does not miss. He does not care where he is or who is watching. And he is not English, so when he misses one at Wembley in October he does not read about it for a week.”

I did not say anything for a second.

”That took me 40 minutes,” I said. ”You have done it in 20 seconds.”

”Well,” he said, and could not keep his face straight.

”Do not enjoy it that much.”

”I am not.”

”Now do the other one.” I moved the marker to the left of the board. ”Manchester City, 16 days, Wembley. Pep puts 5 men in the middle third and dares you to come and get it. What do you do?”

And Jack Grealish, who had been sat in a canteen since half 7 waiting for somebody to ask him a question, told me.

He had 3 things about that press. One of them was better than anything I had written on that board all morning. I have used it since and I am not putting it in here. Pep can read.

We were an hour on it. I have not enjoyed an hour more in a year.

At 10 to 12 Bray put his head round the door and told him to get out on the grass, and told me the same, and I said I would be 5 minutes.

I was not 5 minutes, because there was one telephone call I have not been allowed to make since the 31st of May.

I rang Dougie Freedman, who does not say hello.

”You are back.”

”Dougie. Hakimi and Theo.”

There was a pause on that line, and it was a different pause to the one it has been for 6 weeks.

”Aye,” he said. ”I have been sat here since Tuesday waiting for you to say that.”

”I can go near him now.”

There was a reason I could not, and it is worth putting down plainly, because I have had it explained to me badly in about 9 newspapers since.

From the 5th of June to last night I was the manager of the Morocco national team. Achraf Hakimi was a player I picked. I chose the shirt he wore, the minutes he got and whether he started a World Cup final.

And at the same time, Crystal Palace wanted to buy him.

You cannot do both. Not for a day. A national team manager negotiating a club transfer for a player he is selecting is not a grey area, it is the oldest integrity problem in the sport, and it is the sort of thing that ends careers and voids registrations.

So in May I told Dougie to keep me a mile off it. No calls, no meetings, nothing with my name on it. He ran the whole thing on his own for 7 weeks and I did not ask him once how it was going, because if I had asked, I would have known, and knowing is the problem.

”My contract finished when the wheels touched down at Heathrow,” I said. ”I am not his manager. I am not anybody’s manager except this football club’s. There is no conflict left to have.”

”I know exactly when your contract finished, son. I had it in the diary.” I heard him move. ”So you can ring him yourself.”

”I can ring him myself.”

”Danny.” The chair went. ”Before you do. There is something you need to know about Salas, and you are not going to like it, and I would rather you heard it sat down.”

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus, Kostas_Gounakis and GeriatricGuineaPig for the support.