Chapter 838: The Walsh Way
"What is the 3rd thing?"
"The 3rd thing you already know about."
"Jessica."
"It went up at midnight," she said. "All 8 episodes. It is number 1 in the United Kingdom, it is number 3 in the United States, and it is number 1 in Morocco, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain.
"The Walsh Way. Season 1. It is out."
I sat in that office and did not say anything.
"Danny."
"I am here."
"Have you watched any of it?"
"No."
"Are you going to?"
"No."
"Right," Jessica said. "Well, 4 and a half million other people did last night, so somebody has."
There were 6 people waiting outside my office at 10 o’clock and I did not see any of them for 40 minutes, and that is on me.
Clk.
I shut the door and I put it on.
Episode 1 opens with a shot of Princess Road in Moss Side at 6 in the morning in February. No music. No voice over.
Rrrmmm. A bus going past.
Rrrsh. A shutter going up on a shop.
Then a card with the date I got the under 18s on it and nothing else.
I have never seen the footage. I did not know Elena had been to Moss Side.
Bzz. I put the phone face down.
Episode 1 is 47 minutes long and I got 9 of them.
It is not a football documentary. That is the thing nobody warned me about. There is no analysis in it at all. There is a long shot of Sarah stood in an empty canteen at 7 in the morning laying out 40 chairs on her own, and it goes on for about 30 seconds longer than is comfortable, and then a card comes up that says her name and nothing else.
There is 20 seconds of Bray in a car park in the rain with a bag of cones and a Thermos.
And at 8 minutes there is a shot of a Portakabin at Beckenham with 4 lads in it in November 2016, and 1 of them is 16 years old and sat on a physio bed with his boots in his hands, and the card says ELLIS CARTWRIGHT, 16.
I did not know he was in it. I did not know Elena had ever filmed him.
He was released on the 6th of June and re-signed on the 23rd of July and he is in the 8th minute of the first episode of a documentary that 4 and a half million people watched last night.
I shut the laptop at that point and went and did some work.
Marcus Reid came in at half 11 with a can and no laptop. He does not do that.
"Boss."
"Go on."
"Have you seen the numbers?"
"Which numbers, Marcus, there are 40 sets of numbers in this building."
"The shirt." He put the can down. "It went on general sale in America on Monday. Adidas have rung Nathan twice. It is not a Palace number any more."
"What is it?"
"It is the 3rd best selling shirt in the world this week and the 2 above it are Real Madrid and Juventus, and Juventus is only above it because Cristiano Ronaldo signed for them 3 weeks ago."
I looked at him.
"Marcus, we finished 2nd in England."
"You finished 2nd in England, you took Morocco to a World Cup final, there is a 16-year-old scoring against Benfica on the internet and there are 8 episodes of a television programme with your mother in it." He picked the can back up. "I am not being funny, gaffer, but you are the story of the summer, and every agent in Europe has a spreadsheet with that number on it, and Dougie is about to ring 15 of them."
"My mother is in it?"
"Episode 6," Marcus said. "About 20 minutes in. And I am going to leave now because I can see your face."
Christian Benteke was in the corridor at 20 past 12 and he had been waiting for me. He does not wait for people.
"Gaffer."
"Christian."
"On the plane." He put his hands in his pockets. "The Frenchman."
"I know."
"I have been thinking about it since Tuesday."
Here is a thing I have learned about this squad, and it took me 14 months.
They do not come and ask you for reassurance. They come and tell you what they have decided, and then they watch your face to see whether they got it right.
"Go on then," I said.
"He is right about you," Benteke said. "The Frenchman. You sell men who have stopped getting better."
"Christian."
"No, let me do it. I have had 2 days." He had his hands in his pockets and he did not take them out. "Everybody on that television thought he was being clever about transfers. He was not talking about transfers.
"He was telling 11 of us, on a plane, that every morning we walk in here you have already decided whether we have got more."
"That is not how I look at you."
"It is exactly how you look at me and you should not lie to me about it, because you are good at this and you are not good at that."
He was right and I did not answer him.
"I am 27," he said. "Luka was 27. Milivojević took 8 penalties last season, he scored 8, he was the captain, and he is at West Ham.
"So I have been stood here since Tuesday working out what I am supposed to do with that, and I have not worked it out, and I am not going to pretend to you that I have."
Clk. Somebody came out of the medical room 20 yards down, saw the pair of us, and went back in.
"Dougie is ringing your man this week," I said.
Benteke’s face did not move at all.
"About what?"
"About a new contract. 3 years."
"Do not do that."
"Christian."
"Do not do that today." He took a hand out of his pocket. "Not 2 days after a Frenchman said that on the television. Because then it is not a contract, it is you telling me I passed a test, and I would rather have the contract in October when it is just a contract."
I stood in that corridor and looked at a 27-year-old centre-forward who had thought this through more carefully than I had.
"October."
"October." He put the hand back. "And gaffer. When it does happen. Do not have Dougie ring me. You ring me."
Then he went off down that corridor to the canteen, and I have thought about it about once a week ever since.
At 4 o’clock a courier came to Beckenham with an envelope that had no company name on it.
Tk. Sarah put it on my desk and stood there.
24 pages.
Scritch. Scritch.
I signed 11 of them. Sarah witnessed 3 and did not read any of it and did not ask me a single question about it, and when the courier had gone she said, "Is it what I think it is?"
"I cannot tell you."
"Daniel."
"I have signed a thing that says I cannot tell you."
"Right," Sarah said. "Well. I have got 4 chairs to put out and a 16-year-old who cannot find his boots, so I will let you get on with your international film career."
We trained at 2 and it was the worst session I have taken since April.
Sofyan and Nordin were 3 weeks off the pace and Marcus had told me they would be. Grealish took a knock on the same ankle and Rebecca had him off inside 20 minutes and did not discuss it with me. Pope was still on American time and let 1 through his hands that a 12-year-old saves.
Dnk. Off the inside of a post and out, and nobody said anything, and that is worse than somebody saying something.
And Manchester City are at Wembley in 4 days.
Prrrrp.
"Right. In."
23 of them round me on pitch 2 in the sun.
"That was poor and every one of you knows it was poor, so I am not going to stand here and tell you about it.
"Thursday. 9 o’clock. And on Friday I am not here in the morning."
Bray looked up.
"Where are you?"
"I have got a thing."
"What thing?"
"I have got a thing, Bray."
Ha. Somebody at the back.
And Michael Olise, 16 years old, who has been at this football club since he was 9 and has never once said a word in a team meeting, said, "Is it the Spider-Man thing?"
Hahahaha.
Every single head on that grass turned.
"Michael."
"My cousin works at Leavesden," Olise said.
I got them in at 4 and I did not go home.
Sarah’s spreadsheet was still on my desk with 15 names on it and a column of dates, and at 20 past 6 Dougie rang to say he had spoken to 4 representatives and 3 of them had been reasonable and 1 of them had used the phrase "in the current market" twice in 90 seconds.
At 7 I went and stood on the balcony above pitch 2 with a cold coffee.
3 days.
Manchester City at Wembley on Sunday. Pep Guardiola, a squad that won this league by 19 points, and a manager who has spent his Wednesday signing 11 pages of a film company’s paperwork and watching himself on a television.
I have got 23 fit players, 3 of whom landed at midnight. I have got a fixture card in a seat pocket on an aeroplane that is somewhere over Iceland by now. I have got 130 million pounds that I am not going to spend on a footballer, and 38 and a half million a year that I am going to spend on the ones I have already got.
And 15 men in that building whose agents have all worked out, on the same weekend, exactly what I have built.
Bzz.
Emma. 19:44.
I have watched 3 episodes.
Bzz.
Danny. Ring me. Now, not later.
Bzz.
It is about episode 6.