Glory Of The Football Manager System

On 38 Aubameyang tried it again, inside this time, and Konaté was there again, and Aubameyang went down and looked at the referee with both arms out. The referee shook his head. The North Bank told him what it thought of that for a full minute.

”SCOTT! 5! 5 YARDS!” Konaté, with his hand up and his fingers spread, and Scott Dann dropped off him.

At half time Michael Steele unfolded his arms for the first time.

”They have had 63 per cent of the ball,” he said, ”and Nick has not had a save to make.”

Our dressing room was hot and nobody threw anything.

Sarah had the whiteboard before I had my coat off.

”Their wing backs.” She drew 2 lines, high up. ”Both in our half when they have it. When they lose it, 40 yards from home. Wilf.” She tapped the space behind Bellerín. ”You stop tracking him. You stay there and you wait, and when we win it, you are already gone.”

”And if Bellerín gets forward?”

”Then Ben has 2 men.”

”Fine,” Chilwell said.

”Aaron. Kolašinac and Iwobi are both on you.”

Aaron Wan-Bissaka was turning a shin pad over in his hands.

”Iwobi drops his right shoulder before he goes inside,” he said. ”Every time.”

Konaté had a towel over his head. He took it off.

”Scott. If Aubameyang turns me, you are 5 yards behind me. Not 3. 5.”

”5,” Scott Dann said.

I crouched down in front of Konaté while the others were getting their boots back on.

”The foot?”

”I have not thought about the foot since he went the first time,” he said in French. ”That is how the foot is.”

51 minutes.

Iwobi took a pass from Xhaka on the touchline, came at Aaron at a jog and dropped his right shoulder.

Aaron went.

He was there when the ball arrived and Iwobi was not. He slid in and took it clean, and from the floor he hooked it first time, 50 yards across the pitch.

Thump.

Zaha was already 10 yards behind Bellerín, stood where Sarah had drawn him. He took it on the run without breaking stride, went inside Holding, outside Mustafi, and hit it across Leno from the angle of the box.

Leno got the tips of his fingers to it and pushed it round the post.

”WILF! WILF! WILF!”

Zaha did not wait for the corner. He ran back across the pitch to Aaron, who was still sat on the grass, and pulled him up by both arms.

”Where did that come from?”

”Hampton,” Aaron said.

The corner came to nothing. Emery had seen enough, and on 64 he went for it. Özil on for Iwobi. Ramsey on for Mkhitaryan. The noise when Özil came on was the loudest of the afternoon, and in 4 minutes he put 3 passes into places none of my players had looked at.

On 71 he put a 4th through the middle, and Aubameyang was in behind Scott Dann.

Konaté came across. He got there as Aubameyang pulled the trigger, and put his whole body in front of it.

Thock.

It hit him in the chest and went over the bar, and Konaté went down on his back on the 6 yard line and lay there with his arms out, and did not move.

I was over the white line before I knew I had moved. Sarah got a fist in the back of my coat and held it.

Rebecca was on before the referee had waved her. She knelt over him and pressed his ribs with 2 fingers and said something, and he said something back. Then he got up.

She came off past me with her card.

”He says, it is not the foot,” she said.

”KO-NA-TÉ! KO-NA-TÉ!”

On 79 Guendouzi came on for Torreira, and Torreira got a standing ovation for 79 minutes of running, and then Arsenal threw everybody forward. They had 8 men in our half and we could not get out of it.

”HOLD IT! HOLD THE LINE!” Sarah.

Dann blocked from Ramsey. Chilwell threw himself in front of Xhaka from 25. Konaté headed away 3 crosses in a minute and a half, every 1 of them back over halfway, and after the 3rd he followed it out to the touchline himself and stood there clapping 10 tired men up the pitch.

86 minutes.

Benteke held it up on the edge of their box with Sokratis hanging off him, turned, and hit it, and it went off Sokratis’s knee and behind for a corner on our left.

Bray was already on his feet.

”6! 6! IBRAHIMA, 6!”

Konaté jogged up from the back and stood 5 yards behind the far end of their line of 6, on his own, as if he was waiting for a bus.

Neves took 3 steps back and hit it over all of them.

Ibrahima Konaté came in late, and met it with his forehead.

Thwack.

0-1.

He did not stop running. He ran straight past the corner flag to the away end, and they came down the steps to meet him, and he went into the front row of them with both arms open.

Bray turned round to me with his iPad in both hands and his face completely white.

”42,” he said.

”GLAD ALL OVER! GLAD ALL OVER! GLAD ALL OVER!”

”WE ARE PALACE! WE ARE PALACE!”

Tarkowski was off the bench, on his feet, shouting at the away end with both fists up, louder than anybody on our side of the pitch.

”SIT IN! SIT IN!” Sarah, with both hands flat, pushing the air down.

I put Højbjerg on for Eze on 88, for his legs and his head.

They had 2 minutes and 4 of stoppage time and they came at us in every 1 of them. Ramsey hit the side netting on 90. Pope came for a cross on 93 with 4 men round him.

”KEEPER’S!”

He caught it and lay on it, and stayed on it, and the North Bank whistled him for every second.

Fweeeeeeeeeet.

Arsenal 0, Crystal Palace 1.

”KO-NA-TÉ! KO-NA-TÉ! KO-NA-TÉ!”

”DANNY WALSH! HE SAID NO!”

Michael Steele put his hand out to me without looking at me.

”Clean sheet,” he said.

Emery came across before his players had got up off the grass, and shook my hand, and did not let go of it.

”Good team,” he said. ”Very good team. In May, we see who is still there.”

”In May,” I said.

He went to Torreira, who was sat on the grass with his socks round his ankles, crouched down, held his head in both hands and talked to him for a long time.

Aubameyang found Konaté on the halfway line. They swapped shirts, and Aubameyang kept hold of his hand while he said something else in French, and Konaté nodded. Then Konaté walked over to our corner on his own with the red shirt over his shoulder and stood under them, and the noise came down on top of him.

James Tarkowski was waiting at the mouth of the tunnel.

”I told everybody I should have played,” he said. ”Nobody believed me.”

In the dressing room Rebecca put her card on the bench beside Konaté’s boots.

90.

She had underlined it twice.

The first question in the press room was not about Konaté.

”Danny, Sky are reporting you turned Manchester United down in writing this week. Why now?”

”I can tell you about Ibrahima Konaté,” I said. ”He has not played a league match since May. He has just played 90 minutes against the quickest man in this league, and kept a clean sheet against a side that had not lost since August, and scored the winner. That is the story. You can have all of it.”

”And United?”

”You have the club’s statement,” I said. ”That is all I am saying about it.”

***

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