Glory Of The Football Manager System

Marcus did the morning on Wednesday in a function room with the curtains shut.

He did not show me Salah. He showed me Liverpool’s full backs. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson, 9 clips each, and in every 1 of the 18 the full back was in our half and their midfield 3 were pressing behind him like a net being pulled in.

”Henderson, Milner, Wijnaldum,” Marcus said. ”They do not try to win it. They try to make you give it to them. Every pass you play backwards, 2 of them run at the man you played it to.”

They did it for about 20 minutes the first time, he said, and then they rested for 5, and then they did it again. He stopped the clip on the 5.

”That is where we live, boss. Or we do not live anywhere.”

Bray had Liverpool’s corners on a sheet and did not waste a sentence on them. Ours he had on his laminated card, and he took Konaté and Tarkowski into the corridor for 10 minutes and came back without them.

Michael Steele sat with Nick Pope in the breakfast room in front of a laptop with 6 clips on it, and all 6 were Salah’s left foot going to the near post.

CRYSTAL PALACE: Pope. Wan-Bissaka, Konaté, Tarkowski, Hakimi. Neves. Townsend, Højbjerg, Kovačić, Zaha. Benteke.

Bench: Krul, Sakho, Chilwell, McArthur, Eze, Rodríguez, Perišić.

Mamadou Sakho read the sheet on the wall at lunch and did not say anything. He played 4 seasons for Liverpool. He had played 86 minutes on Sunday.

I found him by the lift afterwards. He asked whether it was Rebecca, and I said it was Rebecca and me.

”Good.” He pressed the button for the lift, although he was not going anywhere. ”If I start, they sing for me before the match, and I hear it for 90 minutes. If I come on, they sing for me 1 time, and then I play.” He held the lift door open with his hand. ”It is better I come on.”

The coach left at 5. The driver had talkSPORT on, low, and at 10 past 5 Emma’s voice came through the speaker over the driver’s head.

”...and so to Anfield, where the league leaders arrive tonight...”

Wilfried Zaha sat up 3 rows behind me.

She said the league leaders again, 4 seconds later, and Zaha held up 2 fingers to the whole coach.

By the Albert Dock it was 5. Emma did 12 minutes on that match without saying the name of my football club once. She said the visitors, and the leaders, and the side from south London. She said the London club twice, and Townsend counted that as cheating and Zaha overruled him.

”7,” Zaha said, as the driver turned her down for the lights on Scotland Road. ”She is better than you, gaffer. You say Palace every 4 seconds.”

The coach came up Walton Breck Road at 20 to 6 into the lights and the smoke off the burger vans, and the people on the pavement saw the crest on the side and banged on the glass with flat hands all the way to the gate.

Thud. Thud thud.

Nobody in my squad looked out of the window. Christian Benteke, who played a season here, had his headphones on and his eyes shut. Sakho was looking straight ahead at the seat in front of him.

There is a sign above the steps at the bottom of that tunnel that says THIS IS ANFIELD, and it has been there since Bill Shankly put it there. Our players went under it at 10 to 8 in a line, and most of them looked up at it.

Mamadou Sakho did not look up. He went under it with his eyes on the back of Konaté’s shirt.

LIVERPOOL: Alisson. Alexander-Arnold, Lovren, van Dijk, Robertson. Henderson, Milner, Wijnaldum. Salah, Firmino, Mané.

Then they played the song, and the Kop and the Main Stand held up their scarves, and Sakho stood at the front of our bench with his hands in his coat and moved his lips through every word of it and did not make a sound. Out in the line on halfway, Christian Benteke looked at the grass.

PRRRP.

It was Marcus’s net, and it was worse from 3 yards away.

Neves turned to take the first ball off Tarkowski and Firmino was on his heels before it arrived. Neves played it back. 2 red shirts went for Tarkowski. Tarkowski put it into the Main Stand.

”ALLEZ, ALLEZ, ALLEZ.”

That went round the ground like a wheel. The Kop started it and the Main Stand took it and it came back round to the Kop, and it did not stop when the ball went dead, because at Anfield the ball going dead is a chance to sing louder.

For 20 minutes we did not get past halfway with it. Robertson stood in our half. Alexander-Arnold stood in our half. Every pass we played backwards, Milner and Henderson ran at the man who received it, exactly as Marcus had drawn it on a screen 9 hours earlier.

Pope saved from Salah at the near post on 9, with his left hand, low, the 1 Steele had shown him at breakfast. On 14 Mané hit the side netting, and the Kop came half out of its seat and sat down again.

”5 minutes!” Sarah, next to me, with her hand flat at her shoulder. ”Hold it! It stops in 5!”

It did not stop in 5.

On 27 Alexander-Arnold took a throw-in 30 yards from our goal and had it back off Henderson before Townsend had turned round. He hit it first time, low and flat, across the edge of our box.

Firmino let it go through his legs without touching it. Konaté went with Firmino.

Salah was behind him.

He took 1 touch onto his left foot with Hakimi coming across, and Hakimi did not plant. He stayed on his toes, the way a boy from Hampton had made him do it on Tuesday morning.

Salah did not try to go round him. He curled it round him, into the far corner, with Pope at full stretch going the other way.

Swsh.

1-0.

RRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

I have heard Anfield on a television since I was 7 years old, and it is not that. On a television it comes out of a box.

In the ground it comes down off the Kop and hits you in the chest. You feel it in the bench under you, and it does not stop when the goal is over.

Salah ran to the corner of the Main Stand and slid on his knees. Hakimi stood on the edge of our box with his hands on his hips and looked at the place where Salah had hit it from.

He had stayed on his toes. He looked at the spot anyway.

”MO SALAH. MO SALAH. MO SALAH.”

Behind Pope’s goal, in the bottom corner of the Anfield Road stand, our lot did not stop for a second.

”WE ARE PALACE. WE ARE PALACE.”

They were drowned out, and they sang it anyway.

At half time it was still 1-0 and that was Nick Pope’s.

He had saved from Mané again on 38, a header from 6 yards that he took on his chest and smothered. On 44 he came for a Robertson cross through 3 men and caught it, and the Main Stand booed him for catching it, and he held it against his chest for 6 seconds before he let it go.

The board was up before the last man was in. Sarah had drawn Kovačić in the middle of it, next to Neves.

”They do it in 20s, and we gave the ball away in the only 5 they gave us. Mateo. When they rest, you take it. Not Rúben, you. Rúben gets doubled. You get 1 man and you go past him.”

Kovačić did not say anything. He had been on the floor 4 times in that half. He put his hand up, the way he does in training when he wants the ball.

Marcus had Alexander-Arnold in our half for 41 of the 45 minutes, and showed me the number without saying it. I found Wilfried Zaha in the corner with a towel round his neck.

”Wilf. Do not track him. He goes forward, you stay. When Mateo gets it, he gives it to you, and there is nobody behind you but Lovren.”

He asked me who it was on if they scored down his side. I told him that 1 was mine.

Rebecca was at the door with her card. Zaha 70. She held it where I could see it and did not say a word.

PRRRP.