Glory Of The Football Manager System

[Newark Liberty to London Heathrow. Tuesday 31 July 2018.]

There is a thing you cannot do on an aeroplane, and it is get away from 30 men.

I found that out at 12:32 in the afternoon, 8 minutes before the doors shut on a 767 at Newark, stood in an aisle with a bag in my hand and a phone in the other one.

Danny. Do not ring me tonight. Ring me at 8 in the morning when you have slept.

Somebody has come back in for Aaron.

I looked up.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka was 6 rows back with his hood up, arguing with Ibrahima Konaté about something on a phone, and he had 7 hours and 20 minutes of sitting still in front of him and no idea.

I could not ring anybody. I could not go anywhere. I could not tell him and I could not not tell him.

So I put the phone in my pocket and sat down in seat 1A with my back to all 30 of them.

Hnnnnnn.

And we went up over New Jersey.

The cabin goes quiet on the way home in a way it does not on the way out. Coming out there are 4 of them who have never been on a plane that size and somebody is filming the wing. Going home there is nothing.

Blinds down at 2 in the afternoon, mouths open, Bray out before we left the runway, Rebecca up and down that aisle every 90 minutes with a bag because 3 of them had knocks she had not written down and Rebecca does not trust a thing she has not written down.

Somebody had left a fixture card in every seat pocket at the front of that plane and I read mine 3 times in the first hour.

11 August, home, Fulham. Wolves at Molineux on the 25th. Cardiff at ours in September. 3 clubs that were in the Championship in May.

Then I got 4 hours of nothing.

And then I got up somewhere over Newfoundland to go and get a coffee I did not want, and 11 of them were awake, and every single one had the same picture on the seatback in front of him.

Bing.

”Cabin crew, seatbelt signs are off.”

Sky Sports News, on the airline feed, 20 past 9 at night in London.

Marcus Reid had a laptop open across 2 tray tables in row 4 with 3 windows on it, and he did not look up.

”Row 12,” he said. ”Ask Christian.”

Christian Benteke had his own screen on it and both earphones in and a hand up at me before I got to him.

”Gaffer. Sit down.”

”Christian.”

”No. Sit down and watch it.” He took an earphone out and held it towards me. ”They have done the window.”

David Jones in the chair, and 4 of them, 2 either side.

The 4th time in 6 weeks. It has stopped meaning good news.

That is what the manager thinks and the manager is a liar.

Because I have been watching that programme since I was 14 years old. I have watched it on a settee with my mother asleep in the chair. I have watched it stood up in a kitchen in Moss Side with a bowl of cereal at half 11 on a Saturday night, and I have watched it in a Portakabin at a county league ground with 4 other men and 1 bar heater.

And the first thing I felt, before the stomach, before any of it, was the thing I have felt every single time since April 2017 and have never once said to a living soul.

They are talking about us.

Carragher on his left, already forward on his elbows with the touchscreen lit behind him, the look of a man who has been waiting since he got back off his holidays to be let off a lead.

Neville next to him. Sat back. Arms folded. Not smiling.

Roy Keane on the right in a grey suit, doing the Keane thing where he has clearly been told the running order and has not ruled out getting up and going home.

And on the end, black polo, Thierry Henry.

The graphic behind them was not a face this time.

9 DAYS.

”Right,” Jones said, and came forward on his forearms. ”Jamie. You have been on at me since Thursday about this, so go on.”

”I want the screen.”

”You always want the screen.”

”I have had a fortnight of this and I have got somewhere with it.” Carragher was up before Jones had finished. ”Nobody put a single number up. I do not want the fees. Everybody watching knows the fees.”

Tap.

SOLD UNDER WALSH: 16 PLAYERS.

”2 summers. 16 out. And I sat here in January and said he was selling the club off, and I was wrong, and I have spent a fortnight working out why I was wrong.”

”Because they finished 2nd,” Neville said.

”No. That is the answer everybody gives and it is lazy.” He put his hand flat on the screen. ”Look at the ages.”

Tap.

”Gnabry 22. Bojan 27. Milivojević 27. Mandanda 33. Go back to last summer and it is the same shape all the way down.

”Every man he has sold in 2 years is either 26 and over, or he is 22 and worth 15 times what Palace paid for him.

”There is no third category. There is no 24-year-old squad player sold for 12 million to balance a book. He does not do it.”

Neville had come off the back of his chair.

”Say the next bit.”

”You say it, you have been sat there working it out for 2 minutes.”

”If he does that twice more,” Neville said, ”then by the summer of 2020 Crystal Palace have the youngest squad in this division and more money in the bank than anybody except City, and they have not sold a single player they wanted to keep.”

”Right.”

”That is not a transfer policy, that is a machine.”

”It is not a machine,” Keane said.

He had not moved in 6 minutes.

”Go on, Roy.”

”It works because they finished 2nd.” Keane turned his head about 4 inches. ”Bayern paid 75 million pounds for Serge Gnabry because Serge Gnabry played 41 games in a team that finished 2nd in England and won a European trophy. If Palace finish 9th, Gnabry is a 30 million pound player and the whole thing stops.

”So it is not a machine, it is a bet. Every summer he has to finish in the top 4 or the model dies, and he has to do it while selling the men who got him there.”

”And how long can you run that?” Jones said.

”Ask him in 3 years.”

”You do not think he can.”

”I think it has never been done.” Keane shrugged with one shoulder. ”That is not the same as saying it cannot be. I have been wrong about the man since April 2017 and I have stopped pretending otherwise.”

Carragher was still at the screen with his hand up.

”There is a hole in it, Roy, and it is not the one you have got.”

”Go on.”

”Who tells him when a player has peaked?” Carragher had come off the screen. ”That is the whole model. Sell at the top. Somebody has to say when the top is.

”There is no committee at that club. Freedman does the deal. Walsh picks the man.”

”So?”

”So he has to be right on his own, every time, for as long as he is there. And nobody is right every time.”

”He has been so far,” Neville said.

”He has been right for 2 windows, Gary. Wake me up after 6.”

”Right, the buys,” Jones said. ”Because you have all done the sales and none of you has done the buys.”

”The buys are the easy bit.” Carragher was counting them off. ”Grealish 22, Højbjerg 22, Tuanzebe 20, Hakimi 19. Kovačić and James made permanent in June, both of them signed off before a ball was kicked at that World Cup, so he had decided on the pair of them in April.

”6 in. 5 of them will still be there in 2023.”

”And the 6th?”

”Krul. And Krul is a squad number.”

Thierry Henry, who had not said a word in 11 minutes, put 1 finger flat on the desk.

”Krul is the only one of the 6 that tells you anything.”

The desk stopped.

”He is 30. He is free. He played 5 matches last season and every one of them was a cup, and he will play the Carabao and 2 group games this year and that will be his year.” Henry did not move the finger. ”Nobody signs a 3rd goalkeeper in July. Nobody in this league. Everybody waits until the middle of September, when a man has gone over in training, and then everybody pays 8 million pounds for a worse one.

”You have all done it. You know you have done it.”

”So?” Jones said.

”So he has counted his season already. 63 matches. He counted them in June and bought the man he will need in October, and it cost him nothing, and not 1 of you thought it was worth a sentence.”

Nobody on that desk had an answer.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus and Kostas_Gounakis for the support.