Glory Of The Football Manager System

Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz.

Emma had put the glass down on the floor and she had both hands over her face.

"Em."

"I am sorry."

"You are not sorry."

"I am not sorry at all, no." She was crying with it. "Danny, you have got a World Cup final and 5 trophies and a Netflix programme and 30 million people have watched you get hit in the mouth by a shield."

On that screen, in the Royal Box, a 32-year-old Spaniard in a Crystal Palace shirt was laughing so hard he had to hold on to Mamadou Sakho.

And behind him, all of them.

Sarah with the folder still under her arm. Bray wearing 2 medals. Marcus with his laptop bag on his shoulder in the Royal Box at Wembley Stadium. Rebecca with her arms folded, and Deano, and Ron in his own coat being held up by 2 physios.

Steve Parish 3 rows back with his hands on his own head.

Nobody in that box was looking at the shield.

"Right," Jones said, when they came back. "Thierry."

Henry had said nothing for 11 minutes.

"Navas," he said.

"Go on."

"1 goal, 2 assists, 28 minutes, and he is 32 years old and he has just played his last match in England."

Carragher took his elbows off that desk.

"Say that again."

"He is going home. It was in his contract from the day he signed it and Crystal Palace have honoured it to the letter." Henry had 1 finger on that desk. "Sevilla have come for him and he goes to Sevilla for nothing, and that is the club he joined when he was 15 years old, and he is going back to it 17 years later for free.

"He knew this morning. He knew when he sat down on that bench."

"Nobody knew that."

"6 people knew that," Henry said.

Bzz.

I looked down at that phone and 41 messages had stopped dead.

Nothing came in for about 90 seconds.

4 people, in 4 different houses in south London. 2 of them had known since July 2017 and 2 of them had known since Wednesday, and all 4 of them had gone a whole week without saying it to each other, in a building where nobody can keep anything.

Then 1 came in.

Then nothing again for a long time.

"He knew," Carragher said. "He knew, and he came on at 62 and did that?"

"Yes."

"And he did not tell anybody."

"He did not tell anybody, and his manager did not tell anybody, and there is no camera on him doing it and there is no interview about it, and on Wednesday morning there will be 4 lines on a website."

Henry sat back.

"A man left a country yesterday. 12 years in England. A Premier League, a Europa League, 2 League Cups, and a Community Shield with 1 goal and 2 assists in his last 28 minutes.

"And on the 5th of August he went up a set of steps in front of the whole thing and gave the trophy back to somebody else halfway up."

I had to put my drink down.

Emma had gone quiet in that chair.

"Danny."

"I know."

"Did you tell them to send him up first?"

"No."

"Did you know he was going to give it back?"

"No."

I was still looking at that television.

"Christian came back down past me with it in his hands looking like a man who had been handed a baby. He said 3 words to me on the way."

"What?"

"He would not have it."

"Right." Jones changed it. "The window. 4 days."

Tap.

PALACE. 4 DAYS. WHAT IS LEFT?

"They have lost a winger," Neville said. "Bowen is not a right winger, he is a forward who plays there. Zaha is left sided and playing 34 games, not 50.

"So who plays right wing on Saturday?"

"Olise," Carragher said.

"Olise is 16."

"Olise is 16 and he came on at Wembley at 82 minutes today and scored the goal that won a trophy, and you have just spent 10 minutes telling everybody that nothing about that club makes sense, so I do not know why you have gone all sensible on me now."

"Because I have got to say something responsible once a night, Jamie."

"You have not managed it yet this season."

"And he is 16, Jamie, and he has not played a Premier League match, and you cannot build a Champions League campaign on a boy who is not allowed to sign a professional contract until December."

"They have signed somebody," Keane said.

The desk stopped.

"Say more, Roy."

"I have not got a name. But they have had 130 million pounds in a bank since June, the window shuts Thursday at 5, and that man has closed 3 windows and spent every pound in the bank in all 3."

"Rodrygo," Carragher said.

Emma looked at me and I did not look back at her, and that told her everything and she went straight back to the screen.

"Santos. 30 million euros. It has been on a Brazilian website since Friday and 3 people have stood it up now." Carragher had both hands out. "And before anybody starts, he is 17 and he does not come. He cannot come. He is not 18 until January, FIFA will not register him, and Santos want him for the season anyway.

"Crystal Palace have bought a player they cannot pick until July 2019."

We agreed that on the 2nd of August. 6 people knew.

Dougie had told me it was going at 10 to 7 and I had read it at 22 minutes past 10 in my own hallway with my shoes in my hand, and I had already rung him back from the car before Emma put the kettle on.

So I did not sit up and I did not swear at a television.

I sat on a sofa with frozen peas against my mouth and watched a man in Salford tell 800,000 people a thing I had known for 3 days and had been going to announce on Tuesday, and the only part of it that got me was how pleased he was.

Bzz.

DOUGIE: There he is DOUGIE: 8 in the morning, not 9. We are going before a newspaper does

"So the wing is still a hole," Jones said.

"The wing is a hole and it has got 4 days left in it."

Bzz.

DOUGIE: Separate thing. Not Rodrygo. Do not read your phone in the morning before you have spoken to me.

Bzz.

DOUGIE: 7. Not 8.

I read that one twice.

He had given me 8 for the Brazil announcement about 90 seconds earlier, and now he wanted 7, and Dougie Freedman does not move a time by an hour for something he is going to enjoy telling me.

I put the phone face down on the arm of that chair.

"That is 3 off Dougie before 6 in the morning," Emma said, without looking up.

"Mm."

"On the 1 day of the year that woman put in a calendar and sent to 14 people."

"Mm."

Emma took the peas away from my mouth and looked at what was underneath them.

She has been a journalist since she was 22. She asks me about 4 questions a night and 1 in 10 of them is one I cannot answer, and she can tell which is which before I have opened my mouth.

She did not ask me that one.

"You are not going in," she said.

"I know."

"Say it out loud."

"I am not going in, Em."

"Right."

She got up and stood in front of me in the light off that television with both hands on my face, and put her thumb under my lip and moved it about a centimetre.

"Does that hurt?"

"Yes."

"Good."

Then she bent down and kissed the side of my mouth where it was not swollen, and stayed there for about 3 seconds longer than she needed to, and said the actual thing into my ear.

"You won a trophy yesterday and you have not said 1 word about it to me and you are not going to, and I have known that since 2015 and I am marrying you in June anyway."

"Em."

"Sit down. Eggs. At a table, like a person."

The last thing on that programme, before they went to the credits, was Gary Neville.

Jones asked him for 1 sentence on the season and he took his time over it.

"Crystal Palace have won a trophy in August with a 32-year-old who has left, a 16-year-old who cannot sign a contract, and a centre-forward who spent 86 minutes marking somebody," Gary Neville said.

"I have got no idea how any of that is supposed to work. It has worked 5 times in 8 months. I am going to stop pretending I understand it."

I turned it off at 10 past 6 and went out to a car in a dressing gown and got the shield out of the boot.

It had spent the night on its side on a bag of Deano's cones.

I put it on the kitchen table next to a plate of eggs, and Emma looked at it, and looked at me, and did not say a word.

That was the last day off I had until the 12th of May.

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