Glory Of The Football Manager System

WAN-BISSAKA. £55M BID. REJECTED IN 25 MINUTES.

”They sold Gnabry for 75 and Bojan for 60 and they did it because the manager decided both men had finished getting better,” Neville said. ”That is not a selling club, Jamie. That is a club that sells on its own terms and buys a Croatian for 18 million on a Tuesday morning while everybody is looking somewhere else.

”You cannot dismantle it. That is the whole of it and it took me 4 days to be sure.”

”So it is dead as well.”

”It is dead as well.”

Jones put the card down.

”That is 4,” he said. ”Fixtures, injuries, Europe, money. 4 of them, and this desk has taken all 4 apart in 40 minutes.”

That is when Roy Keane stopped looking at his own hands.

It was 20 to 11, and there was a folder 4 feet away that I had not opened, and I put a coffee down.

”Jamie is wrong. Gary is wrong. Thierry is wrong and he is closest,” Keane said.

”Go on then, Roy.”

”You are all sat here trying to find a team that beats them.”

Tap. Nothing came up. Jones put a hand out to stop the gallery.

”There is not one. So stop looking on a pitch.”

”There is a football club in Spain,” Roy Keane said, ”that got beaten 5-0 on Wednesday night by a man who was stacking shelves on a night shift 3 years ago.

”They have had 12 managers in 18 years. They sacked one 3 weeks after he won the league. Their president was sat in a glass box in Estonia on Wednesday watching a 16-year-old score against his back 4.

”Nothing stops Crystal Palace. Something takes Danny Walsh, and it is not going to take a season.

”It is going to take a bad Sunday in October.”

Tap.

LOPETEGUI. 5 WEEKS IN POST. P1 W0 L1. GF 0. GA 5.

”Roy, that is 1 match.”

”It is 1 match and it is the wrong 1 match.” Keane did not raise his voice for any of this and that is what made it worse. ”That club took him off the Spain job 2 days before a World Cup and the entire country turned on them for it, and the deal was that he would be worth it.

”He has now managed 1 competitive fixture. He lost it 5-0 to Crystal Palace and his captain was sent off.

”They have got Getafe on Sunday and then Girona, and if he gets to the middle of September on 5 points there is a man in a glass box who will be taking telephone calls he does not have to make himself.”

”And you think Danny Walsh takes that job.”

”I think nobody takes that job,” Keane said, ”until somebody rings and it is real, and then everybody in this game finds out what they actually are.

”He is 29. He has won everything England has got in 9 months. There is 1 building left in world football that is a bigger job than the one he is in and he beat them 5-0 on Wednesday in front of their president.”

Jamie Carragher put both hands over his face.

”You have ruined my week, Roy.”

”I have ruined my own,” Keane said.

Nobody said anything for about 3 seconds. On live television that is a week.

Then Carragher, and he said it quietly.

”He will not go.”

”Everybody goes, Jamie.”

”He turned Manchester United down in July and he has not answered the letter.”

”He did not turn them down,” Keane said. ”He did not answer them. Those are 2 completely different things and 1 of them means somebody has to ask him properly.”

”Can I say something,” Thierry Henry said.

He had said 2 things in 50 minutes.

”Go on, Thierry.”

”You have all spent an hour looking for the thing that stops them. Roy has given you a good one and it is still the wrong one.”

Keane put a hand out. ”Then give us yours.”

”I will give you a question instead, because I do not have the answer and I have thought about it since Wednesday night and I could not sleep on the plane.”

Jones let him go.

”On Wednesday night Crystal Palace beat Real Madrid 5-0. There were 12,424 people in that stadium. There are 61,400 people who bought a season ticket at that club in June and 44,000 more on a waiting list who could not get one.

”So. Where do those people put it?”

”I do not follow.”

”They have won 6 things in 9 months.” Henry counted them off with 1 finger and he did not rush any of it. ”Carabao. FA Cup. Europa League. Community Shield. Super Cup. And a manager who took a country to a World Cup final on the way through.

”9 months. And every single person who supports that football club has spent 40 years being told that this does not happen to them.”

He sat back.

”I played for a club where it happened. I know exactly what it does. It is not the losing that finishes a side like that, and it is not November, and it is not Roy’s president in Madrid.

”It is that in about 14 months, 61,400 people are going to start expecting it.”

”And then a Tuesday night comes round in a group stage against a Belgian side and they draw 1-1 and 60,000 people go home annoyed, and that is the day it changes, and the manager will feel it 6 weeks before anybody in the crowd knows they are doing it.”

Nobody on that desk had anything for it.

”That is not a thing you stop,” Henry said. ”It is a thing that arrives. The only question is whether he has seen it coming.”

The coffee had gone cold in my hand and I said 1 word out loud to a television on a wall.

”Yes.”

Tap.

MONDAY. CRYSTAL PALACE v LIVERPOOL. WEMBLEY. 8PM.

”Right,” Jones said. ”The thing that is actually next. Monday night, and Jamie you can have this one because you are going to take it anyway.”

”6 points. 6 goals. 2 clean sheets. 4-0 against West Ham and 2-0 at Brighton and they have not been out of second gear in either of them.” Carragher had his sleeves up now. ”Alisson. Van Dijk behind a midfield with Keita in it. That back line has conceded 0 in 180 minutes.

”And Klopp has been asked 4 times this week whether Liverpool are the ones who can stop Palace and he has said the same 7 words every time.”

Tap.

KLOPP: ”IT IS VERY EARLY. I DO NOT CARE.”

”That is a man who has watched the Super Cup twice,” Neville said.

”That is a man who has watched it 4 times and had his analysts up until 2 in the morning,” Carragher said. ”I know somebody in that building.”

”So what does he do?”

”He does the thing nobody has done to them yet. He presses them.” Carragher put a hand flat. ”Everybody has sat off Crystal Palace since April because they are frightened of Zaha in behind. Jürgen Klopp has never sat off anybody in his life and he is not going to start at Wembley on a Monday night in front of the cameras.”

”And the referee is Michael Oliver,” Jones said. ”He gives a straight red for a last man and he does not stand about thinking first.”

Tap.

Jones changed it because he had to.

”Before we finish. Emma Hartley is joining talkSPORT.”

Tap.

EMMA HARTLEY. TALKSPORT. 3PM TO 6PM.

On Wednesday at 31 minutes past 11, stood in a corridor in Estonia with a medal in my hand, I got 3 messages off her.

talkSPORT have offered me the 3 to 6.

I have got until Monday, I will have decided by Sunday, and you are the second person I tell.

***

Thank you for all the power stones and golden tickets.