Glory Of The Football Manager System

At half time the dressing room smelled of Deep Heat and wet socks. Sarah drew City’s midfield on the board and Bray did their corners. Rebecca was on her knees in front of Kirby with a roll of tape, because he had a blister he had told nobody about until he had his boot off.

Mitchell was in his place with his shirt off and a towel over his head, and his left sock was ripped from the heel to the ankle where Mahrez had stood on it.

I sat down next to him. Before I could say anything Chilwell dropped onto the bench on his left, still in his bench coat, and pulled the towel off his head without asking.

”You went down,” Chilwell said.

”I know.”

”Do not go down. That is all. He wants you on the floor. Every winger alive wants you on the floor. You are quicker than him, Ty. I am not. Stay up and let him go and then go and get it, because you can, and I never could.”

Mitchell put the towel back on his head.

Deano came over with a new pair of socks and dropped them in his lap and went away again.

[TYRICK MITCHELL. CONDITION 79%.]

79, for a lad who had spent most of 45 minutes standing still and getting shouldered. I did not trust the number.

Prrrp.

On 51 Mahrez went inside him and Mitchell stayed up and went with him, inside, outside, back inside. When Mahrez went to shoot, Mitchell stretched and got the end of his toe to it.

Tk.

The ball dribbled off to Kirby, and Kirby, with 2 strips of tape on his heel, hit it 40 yards first time out to the right where Bowen was.

Bowen took it down on the run and pulled it back along the edge of the box.

Michael Olise met it 20 yards out. He did not take a touch. He curled it with his left foot round De Bruyne, who was too late, and it went into the top corner off the underside of the bar so hard that the net came back out.

Swsh.

1-1.

Our corner lost it. The bedsheet went. 2 of the 4 people holding it went with it, down into the row in front, and the steward who was meant to stop them was doing the same thing as everybody else.

”GLAD ALL OVER. GLAD ALL OVER.”

Olise ran to the corner. Kirby caught him at the boards and climbed onto his back and nearly took the 2 of them over the hoarding into the front row.

On the bench, Chilwell stood up and clapped twice and sat down.

58 minutes. Foden for De Bruyne.

After that it was City. Foden came on and went straight at Kirby, then at Neves, then out to the right to join Mahrez, and for about 10 minutes they had 3 men coming at our left side, with Eze coming back to help and Mitchell in the middle of all of it in his new socks.

Sané hit the bar on 61. I heard it from 50 yards.

Clang.

On 64 Jesus turned Konaté and hit it low, and Krul went down on it and held it and lay there for about 5 seconds longer than he needed to, looking at the sky. The City end screamed at him. He waved at them from the floor.

Thud.

66 minutes. Bernardo Silva for Mahrez.

Mahrez came off past our bench. He stopped by Chilwell and said something to him in French, and Chilwell said something back in English that made the fourth official look round. Mahrez laughed and pointed at Mitchell on the pitch and walked off.

I asked Chilwell what he had said.

”He said your boy is quick,” Chilwell said. ”I said I know. I trained him.”

70 minutes. Grealish for Olise.

74 minutes. Danilo for Walker.

The last 15 minutes of that match I spent with my hands in my coat pockets and my nails in my palms.

On 78 Gündoğan dinked a ball over the top and Jesus got his head on it at the far post, past Krul, and it was going in.

Mitchell got there. He had no time to get his feet right. He got it with his backside, mostly, and his lower back. It bounced off him and off the post and out for a corner, and he went face first into the side netting.

Thock.

He came out of the net with grass on his face and his hands up, and Krul got hold of him by the front of his shirt and said something into his ear, and pushed him back to his position by the chest.

82 minutes. Højbjerg for Kirby.

Kirby came off with blood showing through his sock at the heel and Rebecca already walking down the bench to meet him.

On 87 Eze nicked it off Bernardo Silva on our left, inside our own half, and Mitchell had gone past him on the outside before Eze had decided to use him.

Eze rolled it into his path.

Bernardo turned and chased. He is quick enough. He was quick enough for about 25 yards. Then he was a yard behind, then 2, and Mitchell was at the corner of the box with his head down and Danilo coming across.

shhk.

He hit it across the 6 yard box, low and too hard, a bad cross by anybody’s standards, and it hit Otamendi’s shin on the way through.

It came off Otamendi and hit Connor Blake on the knee, from about a yard, and went in.

1-2.

For a second nobody did anything, including Blake, who did not know where it had gone. Then he saw the net and turned round with his mouth open, and our corner came down the front of the stand in a pile.

”GLAD ALL OVER. GLAD ALL OVER.”

Blake had no idea where to run. He ran in a circle. Then he saw Mitchell sat on the grass by the corner flag where his cross had left him, and went there instead and fell on him. Eze fell on both of them. Then everybody.

Chilwell was off the bench shouting at the pile, and Hennessey had to pull him back by the hood before the fourth official saw.

Sarah stayed in her seat. She had the folder on her knee and she wrote the time in it, 87, and her hand was not quite steady doing it.

The board went up for 4.

City had 3 corners in the 4. Krul punched the first. Sakho headed the second out, then put his arm round Konaté’s neck and shouted in his ear in French about the third before it had been taken. Konaté headed the third.

Mitchell headed the last ball of the night out from the edge of our box with Otamendi climbing on him.

Prrrp. Prrrp. Prrrrp.

Manchester City 1 Crystal Palace 2.

Guardiola shook my hand and went straight down the tunnel, without his players and without a word. I watched him go and I did not blame him.

Mitchell was on his back on the grass near the corner flag, with his arms out and his chest going up and down. Blake was sat next to him tying a lace that was already tied.

I went over. I had nothing to say. I stood there in the cold until Mitchell opened his eyes and saw me.

”My sock,” he said. ”Deano wants it back.”

The dressing room was loud for about 20 minutes, then very quiet for about 5, then Kirby started singing with his foot in a bucket of ice and it went loud again.

Chilwell sat next to Mitchell. At some point Chilwell got his phone out and showed him the goal from the camera behind the net, and they watched it go off Otamendi’s shin and Blake’s knee 3 or 4 times without a word. On the 4th time they both started laughing and could not stop.

Sarah came and stood next to me at the door.

”Wembley,” she said. ”1 goal. And he plays left back.”

It was not a question, so I left it. She put the folder under her arm and went to find the referee.

Dougie Freedman was waiting in the corridor in his away coat, phone in 1 hand and notebook in the other. He waited for a physio to go past before he said anything.

Portsmouth had rung at full time. To say well done, first.

”Then to say they are top of League One and at home on Saturday, and could they have Tyrick on Friday. Not the 24th. Friday.”

Behind me Kirby was still singing and somebody threw a boot at him.

”He plays at Wembley,” I said.

”I know what you told him. I am telling you what they asked. And their manager is going to tell him on the 24th that he could have had him on the 11th, so he will find out either way.”

I heard the door move behind me.

Mitchell was stood in it in his towel with his ripped sock in his hand.

”Is that me?” he said. ”Is that Portsmouth?”