Glory Of The Football Manager System

The banner came up level with my window on 2 broom handles, and whoever made it had used a stencil, so every letter on it was the same height.

MOSS SIDE RED. YOUR DAD WOULD BE ASHAMED.

Thud. Thud thud thud.

Flat hands all down the side of the coach. Deano did not look up from his list.

”Hands are fine,” he said. ”You want to watch the ones with their hands in their pockets.”

Nathan had turned round in his seat to see which way I was looking.

”Boss, I can get the club to...”

”No.”

”It is about your dad, boss.”

”It is about July,” I said. ”Somebody spent an evening on that with a stencil. Leave it where it is.”

The first time I came up this road in a coach, nobody on that pavement knew my name.

I was an interim with 5 matches to save a club, and a squad most of whom have left since, and they booed us because we were Crystal Palace and it was the last day of the season. They have learned my name since then.

Achraf Hakimi was 2 rows back with his headphones round his neck and he had read the whole thing through the glass.

”What is Moss Side?”

”Where I grew up. About 3 miles that way.”

”And red?”

”Them.” I nodded at the pavement. ”My dad stood on the Stretford End every other Saturday until he died. He brought me here when I was 7.”

Hakimi read it again.

”And in July they write to the club and ask for you.”

”They did.”

”And you did not answer.”

”I did not.”

”So this is not about your father,” Hakimi said.

Wilfried Zaha hung over the headrest in front of him with both arms.

”It is about a Manchester lad with a Europa League and an FA Cup and a Carabao Cup, who took a team 2nd behind City and took Morocco to a World Cup final, and when the biggest club in his own city knocks on his door he does not even get up off the settee.”

Zaha looked at the banner going past. ”They would have loved him. That is the problem, Achraf. 2 rules for here. Whatever they sing at the gaffer, you say nothing and you look at the grass.”

”And the second?”

”You beat them,” Zaha said, ”and then you look up.”

Clack. The doors at the tunnel end, and cold coming in off the concrete.

I have been in that away dressing room twice. The first time was the last day of 2016/17, my 5th match as an interim and every match after that, with a squad that had been 5 points off relegation in April, and we won.

The second time we came here and did not lose either. Both times I was sick in that toilet about 10 minutes before I went out, and the only person alive who knows that is a physio who has never once mentioned it.

Marcus put the folder down on the bench beside me and opened it at the Mourinho transcript off the canteen wall.

”He meant it. Sky had a camera at Carrington on Friday and there is no man marker in any of it.” He had a biro and he used it on the page. ”Matić sits. Pogba and Herrera either side and they come forward, not sideways. Mata drifts inside and leaves the whole line to Young.”

”Lukaku?”

”Not scored since Watford in September, and this crowd has been waiting 5 weeks.” Marcus shut the folder. ”They will give Rúben 30 yards and they will be happy about it.”

Rrp. Sarah’s printer, at 20 past 1, under 74,000 pairs of feet.

CRYSTAL PALACE: Pope. Wan-Bissaka, Tarkowski, Sakho, Chilwell. Neves, Højbjerg, Eze. Townsend, Benteke, Zaha.

Bench: Krul, Ward, Tuanzebe, Hakimi, Grealish, Rodríguez, Cartwright.

Christian Benteke read it, then pulled his gloves on in the corner and stood up before I had started.

”9 years in this country, 3 clubs, and I have never won in this stadium.” He said it to the room, not to me. ”Put it in the air early. Every time, early. Smalling will be alright for an hour.”

”And then?”

”And then he will not be,” Benteke said, and sat down.

I got Mamadou Sakho on the way past.

”There will be a minute today when somebody puts his forehead on yours.”

”I know.”

”Scott is at home because of 2 yellows. Aaron did 3 matches in August. I went up a tunnel 2 weeks ago in front of 83,000.” I had his shoulder. ”3 red cards in 13 matches and none in the whole of last season. The last one this club gets this season has already been given.”

”And if he puts his head on me?”

”You put your hands behind your back and you walk, and I will deal with it.”

Mamadou Sakho looked at me for about 4 seconds.

”Then somebody walks you away as well,” he said. ”Because I saw you at Wembley.”

”Bray does. He has got instructions.”

”Bray is 2 feet shorter than you.”

”He has got a fistful of my coat,” I said. ”He has been practising all week.”

PRRRRP.

3,000 of ours had been going since 10 to 1 in the corner of the Sir Alex Ferguson stand, and when the whistle went the other 71,000 turned their backs on the football and sang at the technical area.

”YOU’RE NOT RED ANYMORE. YOU’RE NOT RED ANYMORE.”

There was a man in the front row by the tunnel in a black coat with his season ticket on a lanyard round his neck, and he did not sing it. He stood up, put both hands round his mouth, and shouted 1 word at me.

”JUDAS.”

Then he sat down and waited to do it again.

Our corner came back with the one they wrote in July, when a letter arrived at Crystal Palace from Manchester United and never got answered.

”HE TURNED YOU DOWN. HE TURNED YOU DOWN.”

I stood inside a rectangle of paint and put my hands in my pockets.

Bray came and stood on my left.

”How long are you giving it?”

”All 90.”

”Then I am going to the front and I am doing the shouting,” he said, ”and you can stand there like a postbox.”

Rúben Neves had 11 touches in the first 4 minutes and not 1 red shirt came within 6 yards of him.

Nemanja Matić did not follow him a single step. Neves came 5, Matić dropped 5. Neves went across the pitch, Matić turned his shoulders and watched Eberechi Eze instead, and every time Neves got it that stadium made a low noise that was close to laughing.

[RÚBEN NEVES. CONDITION 94%.]

Then Pogba came through the back of Højbjerg on the halfway line and Old Trafford remembered what it is.

Martial went outside Wan-Bissaka. The cross hit Tarkowski on the thigh and dropped, and Ander Herrera hit it first time from 18 yards, and Nick Pope went full length and got a glove to it and it came back off the base of the post.

”OHHHHHHHHH.”