Glory Of The Football Manager System

The fireworks to the north were still going when I typed an answer, and I deleted it.

I did not know. In November I had told that boy his name went in the morning the window opened. It had gone in. I had never once asked what happened after that.

Emma had her chin on my shoulder, reading the empty box on the screen. She told me to ring Dougie.

He picked up on the 2nd ring with a party behind him, and then a door shut on the party. He had known since the 20th of December that I would ring, and he said it once and quickly.

”The rule says a player must normally be registered by 12 noon on the last working day before the match. Liverpool is Wednesday. The last working day before Wednesday was yesterday, and the window opened at midnight.”

I asked him what normally meant. He had rung the league before Christmas and asked them the same thing.

”It means normally,” Dougie said. ”The next 1. Not this 1.”

The neighbours had found another bottle. Emma took the phone off me, said happy new year to Dougie Freedman as if she had known him for 20 years, and gave it back.

Not Wednesday, I sent Dion. Pitch 3, 9 o’clock, and I will tell you why to your face.

Dion was there at 20 to 9. So was Aaron, with his hood up and a bag of balls, because Aaron is on pitch 3 at 20 to 9 whether anybody has asked him or not.

I told Dion the rule. 12 noon, the last working day, a bank holiday in the way, and a window that opened 12 hours too late for Anfield.

He listened to all of it with the ball under his foot. He did not look at the grass.

”Normally,” he said.

He rolled the ball onto his instep, flicked it up and caught it, the way Rúben Neves does when he is thinking. Then he asked who Achraf had on Wednesday, and I told him.

”Then I am Salah,” Dion said. ”Today. Right side, left foot, all morning.”

It was not a question and he did not wait for an answer.

Marcus brought a laptop down to the fence at 10 with 9 clips of Mohamed Salah on it and 3 of them stopped on the same frame. Salah on the right touchline, the ball on his left foot, the full back in front of him with his weight going the way Salah wanted it to go.

Dion watched all 9 twice, stood up, and went and did it.

He is not Mohamed Salah. Nobody at Beckenham is. But he has spent 2 months finding out how full backs stand.

He came at Achraf Hakimi from the right with the ball on the wrong foot for a right winger. The first time, Achraf planted, and Dion was inside him and gone.

Thk.

”Heels,” Dion said, from 10 yards past him.

The second time Hakimi stepped back on his toes, the way he had learned on that pitch in November. The third time he went with him and took it.

I left them to it. Behind me, at the window of the analysts’ room, Marcus was filming every rep.

Dougie had a whiteboard up in his office by 11, and on the left of it in green pen he had written IN with nothing underneath.

”Nobody in,” Dougie said, before I had sat down. He had not rung a single club and he was not going to. He tapped the right hand side of the board. Out had been busy since 12 minutes past midnight, when Munich rang.

”They did not bid. They asked what it would take for Michael Olise.” He put the pen down. ”I told them he signs his first professional contract at 11 o’clock this morning, and that I will be in the room.”

Olise had turned 17 on the 12th of December, and at 17 a scholar can sign professional terms. Gary Issott had had the paperwork ready since November.

Dougie looked at the empty space under IN for a while.

”They have a man who rings at 12 minutes past midnight on New Year’s Day,” he said. ”I would like a man like that.”

Michael Olise signed at 5 past 11, at the end of Dougie’s desk, with his mother on 1 side of him and Gary Issott on the other.

His mother read every page. She asked Gary 2 questions, both about the clause on education, and Gary answered both without looking anything up. Then she turned the contract round and slid it in front of her son, and put the pen on top of it, and folded her hands.

Olise signed it the way he takes a free kick, with his tongue out at the corner of his mouth.

Nya Kirby was outside the glass door the whole time with his phone up, filming. When Olise came out Kirby lowered the phone and shook his hand very formally, like a bank manager, and then got him in a headlock in the corridor and would not let go until Gary Issott said his name.

Michael Cooke had the other thing, and he did it in the under 23s office with the door open.

Lee Johnson had rung at 8. He had watched Antoine Semenyo beat John Brayford over 30 yards at Wembley in December, and he wanted him at Ashton Gate on loan until May. Every Saturday, and the Tuesdays as well.

Cooke wanted it. Dougie wanted it. I wanted it.

Semenyo sat across from Cooke with his elbows on his knees and heard it out.

”Is it because of Cardiff?” he said. ”I had 6 minutes.”

”It is because Lee Johnson watched you at Wembley,” Cooke said, ”and he wants you every week, and I cannot give you every week. He can.”

Semenyo thought about it for a long time. Cooke let him. Then he asked whether Lee Johnson played 2 up front, and Cooke said sometimes.

”Then I will go,” Antoine Semenyo said, ”and I am coming back in May.”

Cooke said that was the point, and wrote the date on his sheet.

At half 12 there was a text from Steve Parish.

Do you want anybody. Yes or no. Do not explain.

No, I sent.

Good, Steve sent back. Neither do I. Ring the architect if you get bored.

We took the train from Euston at 2, the 18 and the staff, in 2 carriages with the blinds half down. Deano had gone up the M6 at 7 with the van.

The train went out through the cuttings at Primrose Hill, and I sat at a table with Marcus’s Liverpool file and did not open it.

31 days of window. 31 players in the building. Most clubs in the league would buy somebody this month, and every newspaper in the country would count who did and who did not.

What would I buy?

I tried it properly, the way a manager is supposed to. A centre half, because Liverpool would be in the air on Wednesday. Except Konaté and Tarkowski and Sakho and Dann.

A striker, because Benteke is 28. Except nobody in the building had scored more than Benteke. Pato had just scored at Wembley. Blake had scored in the cup, and Cartwright was 18.

Whoever I bought would take somebody’s Saturday off them. Whose?

Olise’s? Semenyo had just gone to Bristol to get his.

I put the file away. Outside, Milton Keynes went past under a low sky.

Across the aisle Sarah had the window section of the Telegraph open and was reading it the way she reads everything, without moving her face. There was a column down the side with every club in the league in it and a list of names. Against Crystal Palace there was a line.

No incoming business expected. Walsh has told the club he has enough.

Sarah turned the page without looking up.

”Steve told them,” she said. ”Good. Now nobody has to ask you in a press room.”

The hotel was on the waterfront, and the wind came off the Mersey hard enough to lean on. Rebecca had the 18 weighed and in bed by 10. I was not.