Glory Of The Football Manager System

[Beckenham. Saturday April 14. 09:00 BST.]

Sarah read the lineup off the clipboard at the team meeting.

”Fletcher. Mitchell, Tomkins, Hannam, Lucas. McArthur, Morrison. Olise, Eze, Zaha. Pato.”

The room did not say anything for a beat.

Five academy lads in the starting eleven. The front three with nine days of rest on their legs between them after the Salzburg first leg. One Premier League debut in goal. The lads in the stand had not been expecting to be in the stand.

Ryan Fletcher was sat in the front row. He had not said a word since I had walked in. His hands were on his thighs and his thighs were not moving.

”Ryan.”

”Gaffer.”

”Premier League debut. Saturday afternoon at Selhurst. Watford. You have been our number three for eight months. Wayne and Pope are both fit. I am playing you anyway because you have earned it, because Watford are not going to give us a problem you cannot handle, and because the next two months are going to take everything out of Wayne and Pope and I want you with a Premier League appearance under your belt before we go to Wembley next Saturday. You are starting. Talk to Hannam. Talk to Tomkins. Talk loud. You are the keeper. You run the back four. You shout.”

”Yes, Gaffer.”

”Lewis.”

”Gaffer.”

”You are on the bench. Tyler is on the bench. You both get on at sixty if we are two clear or seventy if we are not.”

”Yes, Gaffer.”

”Michael.”

Olise had been at the back of the room with his hood up and his hands in the front pocket of the academy hoodie. He had not changed expression in the eight months he had been training with the first team. The eight goals he had scored since Boxing Day had not put a smile on his face once.

”Yeah, Gaff.”

”Right wing. You play the way you played at Huddersfield in December and the way you played at Watford in February and the way you played at Bournemouth on Sunday. You play your game. Watford have a left-back who is going to give you the channel because Watford’s left-back gives everybody the channel. You take what they give you.”

”Yeah, Gaff.”

”Wilf. Eze.”

Wilf was sat next to Eze in the third row.

They had not been expecting to be starting. They had been expecting to be on the bench because Wilf had played the full ninety in Austria and Eze had played eighty and I had told them on Monday that they would not be starting again until Wembley.

Then on Friday morning, Sarah and Bray and I had sat in the analysts’ room and looked at the rotation and decided we were going to put the three of them on the pitch together against Watford and let them play the way they played in training when nobody was watching.

”Wilf wide left. Eze in the ten. Michael wide right. You three play together for an hour and Wilf and Eze come off at sixty for Brandon and Antoine. The hour is the hour we have been waiting eight months to put on a Premier League pitch. The opposition is Watford. The pitch is ours. Find each other. The rest is in your feet.”

Wilf grinned. Eze did not grin because Eze was Eze. Olise had not changed expression at the back of the room.

”Yeah, Gaff,” Eze said.

”Yeah, Gaff,” Wilf said.

Olise nodded once.

Paddy McCarthy was at the back of the room. He had come down from the academy block at half past eight and had been standing at the wall with his Palace coaching jacket zipped to the chin for an hour. He did not say anything.

He did not need to. Five of the lads in the starting eleven had been in his under-eighteens last spring when we had won the FA Youth Cup. Two of them were his current under-eighteens. Watching them go out at Selhurst on a Premier League Saturday was the day Paddy McCarthy had been working towards for fourteen years at this football club.

I let the room break up.

[Beckenham. The Manager’s Office. 11:42 BST.]

Steve Parish came down at quarter to twelve. He had a coffee in one hand and his phone in the other. He sat in the chair across the desk from me without taking the jacket off, which meant he was not staying.

”Daniel.”

”Steve.”

”Tuesday at nine. My office. You. Me. Jessica Finch. Papers.”

”All right.”

”And one more meeting today. Not now. Today. After the match. Boardroom. Eight o’clock. Wear a shirt with a collar.”

”What’s the meeting.”

”It is a meeting I want to have with you and I will tell you what it is about when you sit down at it. Not before.”

”Steve.”

”Daniel.”

”What’s the meeting?”

”Eight o’clock, Daniel. Wear a shirt.”

He got up and went out.

I sat for a moment. Looked at the door. Then I went back to the team-sheet that Sarah had left on the desk.

[Selhurst Park. 14:55 BST.]

The Holmesdale gave Ryan Fletcher a song when his name was read out over the PA.

I had not been expecting them to know who Ryan Fletcher was. The Holmesdale knew. The Holmesdale knew everybody.

They new sang *Ryan, Ryan Fletcher* to a tune the lads in the back of the Holmesdale had decided on Wednesday night at the Beehive, and they sang it for the whole of the announcement of the rest of the team because they were not going to let Ryan think for one second that he was less of a first-team player than the lads being announced after him.

I watched from the tunnel. Ryan stood at the front of the line in his goalkeeper kit with the captain’s armband on his arm because I had given it to him at twenty to three in the dressing room and told him he was running the back four today and the captaincy was the cheapest way to make that the case.

Hannam saw the armband and grinned.

Tomkins, the actual senior in the back four, did not say anything because Tomkins had been a club captain at West Ham and knew that an armband on a debutant goalkeeper for the Premier League afternoon was a manager doing what a manager should do.

They walked out.

[ Selhurst Park.]

The match was the match the three of them had been waiting eight months to play together.

Watford had come for a point. Watford had set up to draw. Watford had set up in a four-four-two diamond with the two centre-backs five yards apart and the full-backs tucked in and a midfield that was going to compress the middle of the park because their plan against a side that played through the middle was always to compress the middle.

Their plan worked for twenty minutes. Eze did not get on the ball in the first twenty. Wilf did not get on the ball in the first twenty. Olise was the only one of the three who had touched the ball more than three times.

Watford had decided that the way to play it was to let Olise have the ball and then double him on every touch, which was a plan, and which I had told the three of them at half ten in the morning was the plan they would face.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the support.