Chapter 900 - 900: Invisible Men

We did it on Friday morning, 11 against 11, and I put Joel Ward on him.

Prrp.

Joel Ward is 28, he has 250 matches, and he will do exactly what he is told for 40 minutes without enjoying a second of it, which is the only kind of man you can use for this.

"6 feet. Hands behind your back. If he goes to the corner flag you go to the corner flag."

"And if the ball comes?"

"You do not care about the ball, Joel. You care about him."

It went badly twice.

The first time Neves took the walk and nobody went into the hole at all, because Pierre-Emile Højbjerg is 24 and has spent a year and a half being told by me to hold his position, and you do not undo that in 20 minutes on a Friday.

The second one was worse. Neves walked, the hole opened, Højbjerg went into it 2 seconds late, and by then the ball had gone to Tarkowski, who could not see any of it from where he was stood and put it long.

PRRP.

"Stop. Stop."

Rúben Neves stood in the middle of a training pitch in Beckenham with both hands on his head and said it loud enough for the far pitch to hear.

"This is stupid. I am 40 yards from the game."

"You are."

"I am watching it."

"You are." I walked out to him. "Do it again."

The 6th one worked.

Fwip.

He went from the middle to a spot 35 yards away, over near his own corner flag, walking, not running, and Joel Ward went the whole way with him, 6 feet off his shoulder, wearing a face like a wet Tuesday in Croydon.

And there was nobody in the middle of that pitch.

Tk.

Højbjerg stepped into it. 1 touch to set, and he hit it from 25 with his laces into the top corner past a goalkeeper who is a full England international.

About 30 people saw that, and 9 of the 30 were coaches, and a woman from the kitchen had come out with a tray and stopped on the path to watch the end of it. Rúben Neves was 35 yards away with his back to it and he heard the net go and did not turn round, and Joel Ward turned round, and that is the only difference between the 2 of them that matters.

The press conference was at half 12 on the Friday and the first question was the run.

3 competitions, 12 weeks, not beaten since the 15th of July, and did I have a message for the supporters.

"A run is a thing other people count."

"Is that it?"

"That is it."

"Nothing else?"

"Alright." I had not planned to say the rest of it and I said it anyway. "Competitive is when we can win a football match. Invisible is when you watch it back on a Sunday and you cannot tell which of the 11 did it.

"I have got 4 players on the front of a German newspaper this morning and 7 who were only there. 1 of the 7 is the best footballer at this football club and on Wednesday night he touched the ball 30 times. That is what I have been doing all week and it is the only thing I care about."

Nobody wrote it down.

40 seconds went by while 11 men waited for a better quote, and then somebody asked me about Eden Hazard.

Nathan had the German end of it on a phone afterwards.

Bild ran a second double page on the Thursday. Kicker moved us to 2nd in their European rankings. And The Unity put 1 photograph out at 2 o'clock on Thursday morning. A bedsheet on a garage floor, 4 metres of it, with an eagle drawn on in pencil and not a single word painted yet, and no caption underneath it at all.

"They have started it," Nathan said.

"I know."

"12th of December, boss. They are bringing 4,000."

James Rodríguez and Rúben Neves stayed out after that session and I watched it from 40 yards away with a bag of bibs in my hand and I did not go over.

Rodríguez kept a ball moving between the inside of his boots the entire time. He has never once talked to anybody at this club without a ball under him.

I asked him about it on Friday evening, because I wanted 1 line of it and he gave me 3.

"What did he get out of you?"

"I told him that in 2014 I scored 6 goals at a World Cup and in 2015 a man from Getafe stood next to me for 90 minutes and I had 19 touches." He was putting a ball bag on a hook. "And that I went home and I was angry for 4 days, and my father asked me what Getafe did with their best midfielder that afternoon.

"They gave him to me. For 90 minutes. A team fighting relegation gave their best player to a man who did not touch the ball."

"And what did that do?"

"Nothing." Rodríguez shrugged one shoulder. "We drew 1-1. But I stopped being angry, because I understood what I was worth to somebody who had to plan for me, and a 21-year-old does not know that yet and cannot be told it by his manager."

"Why not by his manager?"

"Because you pick him," James Rodríguez said. "Everything you say to him has a team sheet inside it."

Wilfried Zaha caught me on Friday at 10 past 4 and he was not angry either.

He spent 90 minutes in Germany tucked in beside Achraf doing the one job nobody has ever asked him to do here, and he has not mentioned it to me once.

"The 34."

"Go on."

"You have got 6 matches down for me not to play. I have seen the list, Rebecca has seen the list, I have not argued about 1 of them." He had a bottle in his hand and he was not drinking out of it. "Newcastle away is on it."

"It is."

"Take it off."

"No."

"Boss."

"Wilf, I will have that conversation with you and I will have it properly, and I am not having it 40 hours before Chelsea, because you will win it and I will know exactly why I lost." I put the bibs down so he could see I was not walking off. "Second week of November. You bring Rebecca, bring the list, bring whatever you want. I am not going to pretend I have a good answer ready today."

Wilfried Zaha stood there and thought about that.

"Second week of November."

"Second week of November."

"Right," he said, and then he stood there another second. "For the record, I would do Wednesday again. All 90 of it. I am not moaning about Wednesday."

"I know you are not."

"I just want you to have heard me say it."

Rebecca put the card on my desk at half 5 on Friday with 6 names on it.

4 amber, 1 red, and 1 that is neither and has a number next to it instead.

"The red is Perišić and it is not a discussion. He has done 27 minutes, then 90, then 90 in 12 days, and that hamstring has about 3 minutes of goodwill left in it."

"And the number?"

"Grealish. 60." She did not sit down. "He came and asked you about it."

"He did."

"And what did he get?"

"That the day I overrule you on a calf is the day nobody in this building reads your card again."

Rebecca picked her pen up off my desk, which she had put down 30 seconds earlier, and turned it over twice.

"Put him on at 30 on Saturday."

"At 30."

"At 30. Same 60 minutes, and I will sign it." She wrote it on the card while she was talking. "He comes on in a first half instead of at the end of a second one, and he gets half time in the middle of his 60, and a calf likes half time."

"Nobody makes a substitution at 30 minutes, Rebecca. Every camera in that ground will think he has pulled something."

"Then they will be wrong by 7 o'clock." She put the card back down facing me. "And it is my change, not yours, and I want him told it was mine."

Shk. Shk. Studs on the walkway outside my door at 20 to 7, going slowly, one man.

Michael Steele was the last one out of that building on Friday night apart from me.

He had a holdall and a bag of balls that is not a first-team bag of balls, and he went past my door and stopped and said goodnight and did not say one word about Sunday morning.

He has been asking Deano for a set of keys every week since Dortmund and Deano keeps giving them to him and keeps telling me he has given them to him.

I promised that man a month.

"Night, Michael."

"Night, gaffer."

That is the 3rd Friday in a row he has done that.

On Saturday at 3 o'clock N'Golo Kanté walks out at Wembley to stand 6 feet from a 21-year-old who has agreed to go for a walk.

***

Tnx for reading.