7 hours later, the season started without us.
We were in a hotel in Hammersmith by 6 because we played at 3 on Saturday 6 miles away, and 20 of them ended up in a function room with the carpet rolled up watching a television.
Manchester United against Leicester City. Old Trafford.
RRRAAA.
Paul Pogba scored a penalty inside 3 minutes.
There were about 20 of them in that room and it went quiet at 20 past 8, and it was 20 men being careful at the same time.
Axel Tuanzebe was on the end of the second row.
He signed for us on the 27th of July. 13 days before that he was a Manchester United player. He went into that academy at 8 years old and he has got 4 mates in that squad and 1 of them was on the pitch.
[AXEL TUANZEBE. 20. DETERMINATION 17. TEMPERAMENT 16.]
Nobody said a word to him about it. That is a dressing room. They are not kind and they are not cruel and they know where the line is without anybody drawing it.
Christian Benteke got up, went to the back of the room, poured 2 cups of tea, came back and sat down next to him.
They talked about how hot the water was.
I went out at 9 o'clock and stood in a car park in Hammersmith that smelled of the A4, and Sarah came out 4 minutes later and stood next to me and looked at the traffic.
There is a meeting request in a drawer in Jessica Finch's office from the club on that television. Undated. At my convenience. A conversation about the next 10 years of a football club.
I have left it there and I have kept it to myself.
"Are you going in?" Sarah said.
"No."
"Right." She had a folder under her arm at 9 o'clock at night in a hotel car park, because she had come out to a car park with a folder. "Then I need 4 minutes on the bench for tomorrow, because Rebecca has taken Grealish off the sheet and I have to give the Premier League 18 names by 11 in the morning."
We did it stood up, on the bonnet of a car, in 6 minutes.
Hnnn.
Saturday. 3 o'clock. Craven Cottage.
24,821 in a ground on the Thames with a wooden pavilion in the corner, 6 miles from a stadium where we played in front of 84,617 people 6 days ago.
The dressing room smelled of deep heat and new cotton.
[FULHAM v CRYSTAL PALACE. 4-3-3.]
[GK: POPE. RB: WAN-BISSAKA. CB: TARKOWSKI. CB: SAKHO. LB: CHILWELL.]
[DM: HØJBJERG. CM: NEVES. CM: McARTHUR.] [RW: BOWEN. ST: BENTEKE. LW: ZAHA.]
No Perišić. Rebecca ruled him out of Saturday, Tallinn and the Saturday after when she signed that medical off, and she said it in front of Marcus, and I have taken her word on all 3.
Which is why the interesting thing on that sheet was a name that was not on it.
Antoine Semenyo found out at 10 past 1 that the man he thought had taken his shirt was not in the squad at all.
He looked at that sheet. Then he looked at me for about a second and went and got changed.
I let him believe the wrong thing for 2 days and I would do it again, because a boy of 18 who thinks he lost a shirt to Ivan Perišić trains like a man on fire, and a boy of 18 who thinks he lost it to a hamstring trains like a boy of 18.
And 25 minutes after that, Marcus was proved right about the left back.
Joe Bryan signed on Thursday afternoon, did 1 session, and started at Craven Cottage 46 hours later. And Ryan Sessegnon, 18 years old, spent 41 minutes running forward into ground that had not been there for him in a year.
He got in behind Aaron twice in the first half hour.
[RYAN SESSEGNON. 18. PACE 16. OFF THE BALL 15. POTENTIAL 172.]
That is the 5th time in 3 years and I have signed 2 of the other 4.
The second one was a clear sight of goal.
Nick Pope came out and made himself the size of a door and took it in the chest.
Thwack.
"OOOOH."
Michael Steele, who says about 9 words a day and has been a goalkeeping coach for 21 years, said 1 of them on our bench.
"Good."
He had Pope on that near post for 40 minutes on Thursday afternoon with a bag of balls and a mannequin, coming for nothing and going nowhere, and Nick Pope did not ask him once why they were doing it.
We were nowhere for 25 minutes. Højbjerg, Neves and McArthur could not find each other, and Fulham pressed us like a side with 12 new men and nothing to lose.
[POSSESSION 44%. MIDFIELD OVERLOADED.]
I stood on that white line and pointed at Rúben Neves, held 2 fingers up and put my hand down flat.
Drop. Take it off Tarkowski. Come underneath them.
He nodded once and the shape of that pitch changed inside 4 minutes.
Then Bray's corner went in on 41.
Routine 6. Zaha goes short and stops 2 yards away, the near post steps out to cover him, and the taker ignores him and clips it to the back post over everybody.
Christian Benteke started 2 yards deeper than he stood all last season. Alfie Mawson went up. Benteke went up later and higher and put his forehead through it and drove it down into the turf.
Boom.
Off the ground, past Fabri, into the roof of the net.
0-1.
Bray asked for 3 sessions on that. He got 2. It went in on the 41st minute of the first Saturday of the season, and he turned round to the bench with both arms out and shouted 1 word at me.
"TWO."
"They are gone," I said at half time. "They have spent 45 minutes chasing a ball round the middle of a pitch. Rúben, it is your tempo now. James, 5 yards higher. Jarrod, get on Bryan and stay on him.
"We finish this in 20 minutes and we get on a plane on Monday."
Fulham had 5 minutes of the second half. Mitrović dragged 1 wide and that ground got loud.
Then Zaha did it on 53.
He got it 40 yards out with 3 white shirts round him, dropped his left shoulder, and went through a gap about 18 inches wide.
Fabri came 4 yards further off his line than he needed to.
Shhk.
Zaha put it over him from 20 yards and it dropped into a goal with nobody in it.
RRRAAA.
0-2.
Jokanović stood on that touchline with his hands in his pockets.
63 minutes. Rúben Neves took a clearance 25 yards out on the half volley without controlling it, and it went in off the underside of the bar.
0-3.
He did not celebrate that one. He has hit about 40 of them and he has decided they are ordinary.
71 minutes. Aaron Wan-Bissaka took it off Tom Cairney on the edge of our own box, carried it 30 yards and slid it wide to Jarrod Bowen, and Bowen came inside Le Marchand and put it in the far corner.
0-4.
Michael Olise came on for Zaha on 78 and got a standing ovation off the 2,000 behind that goal.
That happens to a 16-year-old about 4 times in a career. It has happened to him twice in 6 days.
He paid them back on 85. Faked the cross, dragged it back with the sole of his boot, and put an in-swinger over 3 men onto Christian Benteke's forehead at the penalty spot.
0-5.
Prrrrp. Prrrrp. Prrrrp.
I have watched it back once and I am not watching it again.
It is the 8th best 90 minutes this squad has played in 4 months. We were nowhere for 25 of them and a promoted side had 2 clear sights of our goal, and then we scored 5 in 44 minutes because a left back had done 1 training session and their midfield had run itself into the ground chasing Rúben Neves.
3 points. Away. Without a 29-year-old winger, a 22-year-old midfielder and a 32-year-old who is in Seville.
Ryan Sessegnon went over to Michael Olise at the whistle and shook his hand and said something into his ear, and I have asked 2 people since and neither of them heard it.
Sessegnon turned 18 in May. Olise is 17 in December.
There is a year and a half between them, and it is the difference between a boy with 50 matches in a Championship and a boy with 12 minutes in a Premier League, and in 4 years there will be nothing between them at all.
Bzz.
Dougie. 17:02.
Well done son. 5.
Bzz.
Ring me Monday. Not tomorrow. Monday.
Bzz.
It is about Lisbon.
I put that phone in my pocket and went into a dressing room with the music too loud in it, and Christian Benteke had ice on a knee and Wilfried Zaha was laughing at Aaron about something.
[UEFA SUPER CUP. REAL MADRID. TALLINN. 4 DAYS.]
26 days since a room under the Luzhniki, and the first 90 minutes of the rest of it.
***
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