Glory Of The Football Manager System

On Friday morning Rebecca’s card for Sunday was mostly red again.

She had circled 3 names in green. Wan-Bissaka, 60 minutes. Eze, 65. Grealish, 75. Under them, in her small writing, she had put KRUL ONLY IF STEELE SAYS SO, because of the shootout on Wednesday night.

Steele said so.

Bray had Llorente on his iPad. He had a man picked for every Spurs corner, and he wanted Højbjerg on the near post for all of them. I told him Højbjerg was starting. He wrote it down before I had finished saying it.

Marcus had a white dot for every touch JJ made at Stamford Bridge on his laptop. 71 of them. 40 on the left touchline, then the rest all over the pitch in the last 20 minutes, chasing.

On Saturday Michael Cooke drove to Portsmouth.

He rang me at 5 from the car park at Fratton Park with the engine running.

Tyrick Mitchell had sat in the stand for the whole match in a blue Portsmouth coat 2 sizes too big for him, because he had played against Grimsby for us in the third round and could not play in this round for them.

Portsmouth went 1 up when a cross went in off a QPR defender. QPR equalised with 20 minutes left.

”He stood up for every corner,” Cooke said. ”Theirs and ours. Every 1. A man behind him asked him to sit down and he did not hear him.”

Blake was in the same position at the Riverside, in the stand, unable to play in the cup for the same reason. Middlesbrough led Newport from early in the second half until the 3rd minute of added time, and then Newport scored.

I found that out from Ron on Wednesday. On Saturday nobody had rung me from Middlesbrough.

On Sunday morning, at breakfast in the hotel at Wembley, Pato put his phone face up next to my plate.

It was a photograph of a television showing a stadium in Chile.

”Friday night,” Pato said. ”Rodrygo wins the penalty. Brazil 1-0 Bolivia. Now they go to the last 6.” He took the phone back. ”I ring him at 11. Before our team meeting. He wants to know about the hamstring of Ivan.”

I asked how Rodrygo knew about Ivan’s hamstring.

”I tell him everything,” Pato said, and he took a sausage off my plate and went.

CRYSTAL PALACE: Krul. Wan-Bissaka, Tuanzebe, Dann, Chilwell. Højbjerg, Kovačić, Grealish. Zaha, Benteke, Eze.

Bench: Hennessey, Ward, Tarkowski, Perišić, Townsend, Pato, Asare.

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR: Gazzaniga. Foyth, Sánchez, Vertonghen. Trippier, Skipp, Dier, Walker-Peters. Lucas, Llorente, Johnson.

Kane and Dele were injured. Son had only just come back from the Asian Cup. Pochettino had changed most of the team from Thursday, the way Marcus said he would, and JJ was on the team sheet on the left, the way Marcus said.

Nya Kirby was in the seats behind our bench with his right foot in a grey protective boot up to the shin, and a programme rolled up in his fist.

JJ was warming up in front of the Spurs end in a long-sleeved shirt with his hands pulled up inside the sleeves. He did not look across at our half once.

[JJ JOHNSON. CA 166. PA 192.]

5 points since November.

Prrrp.

Eze wanted Spurs.

Everybody in our dressing room knew it, and everybody in theirs had been told it, and Dier spent the first 10 minutes standing so close to him that Eze could not turn his head without touching him. Eze did not argue about it.

He ran Dier into Kovačić twice, and on the second time Dier ended up on the grass with Kovačić on top of him, and Kevin Friend gave us the free kick and gave Dier a look.

Højbjerg won the first header from Llorente on 4 minutes and the second on 6. On 12 he won the third, and Llorente slapped him on the shoulder on the way back to halfway, and Højbjerg turned round and said something to him that made Llorente laugh.

JJ got the ball for the first time on 9.

Aaron was in front of him. The last time they had met, in November, Aaron had followed him all over the pitch, left, middle, right, and JJ had scored anyway. This time Aaron stayed in his position, on his toes, and showed him the outside.

JJ looked at him. Then he played it back to Walker-Peters and ran inside, and Aaron let him go to Tuanzebe, and Tuanzebe took him.

On the bench Sarah wrote something.

We scored on 31. Benteke held the ball up with his back to Sánchez for so long that the Spurs end started whistling him, and then he laid it off to Kovačić, and Kovačić gave it to Eze on the edge of the box.

Eze went inside Dier and shot with his left. Gazzaniga got down and pushed it out. Eze was already following it in, and he hit the rebound with his left again from about 6 yards before Gazzaniga could get up.

Swsh.

He ran to our end and stopped in front of them with his arms spread and said nothing at all. They said it all for him.

”GLAD ALL OVER. GLAD ALL OVER.”

Just before half time Juan Foyth went on a run down our left from his own half. Chilwell came across and took his legs from behind as Foyth got into the box.

Kevin Friend pointed at the spot.

Trippier put the ball down. Krul did nothing, for once. He stood on his line and waited. Trippier sent it wide of the left post, and the whole Spurs end groaned at once.

Thud. The ball hit the hoarding behind the goal.

Spurs had now missed 3 penalties in 2 matches.

Prrrp. Prrrp.

At half time Rebecca reminded me about Aaron’s 60, without being asked.

Pochettino brought Lamela on for Vertonghen at half time and went to a back 4. Lamela went to the right, and Trippier went to right back, and JJ moved further up the pitch.

On 57 JJ scored.

Aaron did everything right. JJ came at him from the halfway line, and Aaron stayed on his feet, on his toes, showing him the outside again. JJ did not go outside. He did not go inside. He hit it from 25 yards with the outside of his right foot before Aaron had got close enough to block it.

It started outside the post. Krul went for it with everything he had and it went away from him all the way, and it came back in off the inside of the post at the far side.

Thock.

JJ ran to the Spurs end. Lucas got to him first, then Lamela, then all of them, and they took him down onto the grass by the corner flag and lay on him.

I clapped.

I did not decide to. My hands did it, twice, before I put them in my pockets. Sarah looked at my hands, and then at me, and said nothing.

On 60 Aaron came off for Ward. He walked past me without looking at me and dropped onto the last seat with a towel over his head. I left him there.

On 63 Pochettino took Dier off for Wanyama, who is bigger, and Højbjerg stopped winning everything.

On 65 Rebecca’s card came up for Eze, and Dion went on in his place, on the right, where Walker-Peters was. Somewhere in the stand behind our bench a woman shouted his name, once, and I knew whose voice it was.

Dion went past Walker-Peters on 71, the first time he tried. His cross was low and hard and it went across the 6 yard box with nobody near it, and Benteke was on the floor at the near post where Sánchez had put him.

On 75 Rebecca’s card came up again. Grealish came off, and I sent Pato on in his place, my last change. I wanted it won today, not in a replay.

On 81 Spurs brought Kazaiah Sterling on for Lucas.

On 86 JJ went at Ward.

Joel Ward has been at this club since 2012. He knows how to stand up a winger.

JJ did not try to beat him. He showed him the ball and took it away, showed it again and took it back. On the third time he went outside, and Ward got a foot to it and the ball rolled on anyway, and JJ got to it on the byline before it ran out.

He looked up before he crossed. I saw him look up. He had always looked up, since the first Sunday I saw him on the pitch behind the Railway Arms.

He put it on Llorente’s head at the far post.

Højbjerg was on the near post, where Bray wanted him, for corners. This was not a corner.

Llorente headed it down hard. It bounced once and went in over Krul’s arm.

Thump.

The Spurs end came down its steps again.

I had no changes left. Dann went up front for the last 3 minutes, with the armband on, and nobody stopped him.