Chapter 848 - 848: Tactical

31 minutes. Foden gets it in the pocket for the first time since the change and turns, and James McArthur is already stood in the place he wants to turn into.

Tk.

He goes backwards. That is the first time all afternoon that Phil Foden has gone backwards.

32 minutes. Bernardo Silva drifts 40 yards to the right touchline looking for a pocket and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg goes 40 yards with him, and stands next to him, and does not tackle him and does not press him, and stands there like a coat on a hook.

Bernardo Silva looks over his shoulder twice.

Hahahaha. 8,000 people behind that goal, at a Portuguese international, in a Community Shield.

34 minutes. Mahrez over a free kick from 22 yards.

Thump.

Straight into the wall, and the wall was Rúben Neves, and it hit him flush on the hip and he got up laughing at it and shouted something at Mahrez that made Mahrez laugh as well.

36 minutes. Sané at Chilwell. Chilwell shows him the line and takes it off his standing foot.

"AGAIN, CHILLY. AGAIN."

37 minutes. Sané at Chilwell again. Chilwell shows him the line again and Sané puts it out for a throw-in himself.

Ben Chilwell is 21 years old and he cost 25 million pounds in January and Leicester have not stopped ringing Dougie about a buy-back clause that does not exist.

38 minutes. Agüero drops off Sakho into the middle and Sakho does not follow him, and Sakho points at McArthur, and McArthur takes him.

That is 4 men doing the right thing in a row without anybody shouting.

[MAMADOU SAKHO. POSITIONING 15. DECISIONS 13. LEADERSHIP 16.]

Decisions 13. He has made 3 correct ones in 40 seconds and every one of them was because James McArthur was talking to him.

City had 71 per cent of that football and nowhere on earth to put it.

And 84,617 people worked that out at about 39 minutes, 4 minutes after we did.

"WE ARE PALACE! WE ARE PALACE!"

It started in the corner where the drum is and it went right the way round the lower tier in about 20 seconds, and it did not stop until the whistle.

41 minutes.

Wilfried Zaha got it 35 yards out with Kyle Walker in front of him.

He had not looked at our bench once since the coin toss. Not at the goal, not at the drinks break, not when Rebecca took a bottle off him. 41 minutes and he had not turned his head 4 inches in our direction.

61,400 people stood up before he had taken a touch.

He has not played a match since the 15th of July. He has been at this club since he was 12. He was on that pitch the day they went down and he went to Manchester United at 20 and it did not work and he came back and this country laughed at him for 3 years.

RRRRAAAAA.

He went at Walker.

Walker is 28 and he is England's right back and he went to a World Cup semi-final 4 weeks ago, and he got his body across and did everything correctly, and Zaha went past him on the outside like a man going through a door.

shhk. shhk.

2 more of them came at him on the byline and he did not go down and he did not look up.

He cut it back with the outside of his left foot from 4 yards off the line into a place where there was nobody at all.

And Christian Benteke arrived in it.

He arrived in it because he had spent 12 minutes going to the near post at every single dead ball since Bray shouted 6 at him, and because John Stones and Aymeric Laporte had spent 12 minutes going with him, and because a man does not stop expecting a thing 12 minutes after he has started expecting it.

Both of them went near.

Benteke went far.

41 minutes of chasing a Brazilian round a pitch in 27 degrees. 2 runs into that box all half. He came off Aymeric Laporte's shoulder at the exact moment a man who has done nothing but work should have had nothing left, and he got 4 inches in front of him. 4 inches is 12 years of knowing where to put them.

Boom.

Off the forehead, down into that surface, and up past Claudio Bravo's left hand before Bravo had finished going down.

fsst.

RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

It came back off the arch about half a second late and hit us all over again.

Christian Benteke went to the corner where the drum is and did not slide and did not take his shirt off. He stood in front of 8,000 people with both arms out and let them have him.

And Wilfried Zaha came 40 yards to get to him, and on the way past our technical area he turned his head and looked straight at me for about half a second.

That is the only time he did it all afternoon.

3 flags went over the top of that stand, hand to hand, all the way to the back row.

And in Block 122 a man of 58 who has had that seat since 1979 was stood on it with both hands on his head, shouting something at nobody, and the lad next to him had hold of his shirt to keep him on the chair.

Pep Guardiola unfolded his arms and said 1 thing to the man with the laptop.

The man with the laptop wrote it down.

And then City had 4 minutes.

That is what they do. You score against Manchester City and they take the restart and they come at you for 4 minutes with everything they have got, because Pep Guardiola has spent 10 years teaching men that the most dangerous 4 minutes in football are the 4 after you have been hurt.

43 minutes. Mendy, Foden, Agüero, and Nick Pope came off his line and got both hands on it above Agüero's head.

Thump.

44 minutes. Bernardo Silva put one through for Sané and Aaron Wan-Bissaka got across and took it off him without touching him, on the byline, with his standing foot, the way he has taken it off 400 men.

Shhk.

He got up and looked at our bench for the first time in the match.

I put my thumb up. He turned round and got on with it.

45 minutes. Mahrez cut inside Chilwell and hit it and it went 4 rows into the Palace end and a man in a green shirt caught it one handed and 8,000 people cheered a catch.

And on the last kick of that half Christian Benteke went to close Fernandinho down and got there half a yard late, for the first time in 45 minutes.

Rebecca did not say anything to me about it. She wrote it on the tablet with 2 fingers and turned the tablet face down on her knee.

4.1 kilometres at 29 minutes. She had said 65.

RRRAAAA.

Prrrrp. Prrrrp.

Half time. 1-1.

84,617 people stood up at the same time and made a noise you could feel through the soles of your feet, and 61,400 of them had watched their football club go 1-0 down to the champions of England and come back at them for half an hour on their own ground.

I got 4 seconds on that touchline before I went in.

I spent all 4 of them at the far end, on a man in a grey jumper who had been stood still for 20 minutes and had started talking about 90 seconds ago.

Then I turned round and went down that tunnel, and Marcus Reid was stood at the bottom of it with his laptop shut under his arm.

He does not do that. Marcus Reid does not leave a bench before a whistle, and he had left that one before the whistle.

"Boss."

"Marcus, I have got 12 minutes."

"You have got 11 and you are going to want to spend 2 of them on this." He did not open the laptop. "Their bench. From about 41 minutes."

"Go on."

"Gündogan has been out of his seat for 4 minutes and he has not stopped moving, and İlkay Gündogan does not warm up at half time in a friendly."

"It is not a friendly."

"No," Marcus said. "It is not."

I stood in a concrete corridor under 84,617 people with a dressing room 20 feet away and 10 men in it waiting for me.

"Say the rest of it."

"Sané has been on the touchline talking to a physio since 43 and the physio was not touching him." He shifted the laptop. "Boss, they are not bringing a winger on. They are bringing a midfielder on.

"Gündogan for Sané is 3 in the middle and it is 4 against our 3, and every single thing you fixed at 29 minutes stops working in about 4 minutes of the second half."

Down that corridor somebody had a door open and I could hear Rebecca telling somebody to sit down.

"How long have you known?"

"Since 43. I wanted to be sure and I have been sure since 45."

"Then why are you stood in a tunnel and not on the bench?"

"Because if I say it in that room in front of 30 of them," Marcus said, "you have got to have an answer for it in front of 30 of them. And I did not think you would have one yet."

That is loyalty and I have never once had to ask him for it.

"Marcus."

"Boss."

"I saw Gündogan at 42."

He stopped with his hand on that laptop.

"You saw him."

"I saw him get up and I have had 3 minutes on it and you have had 3 minutes on it, and you came down a tunnel to protect me and I am telling you now that you did not have to." I put my hand out for the laptop and he gave it to me. "Open it on the bench next time. In front of all of them. Every time.

"If I have not got an answer in front of 30 men then I should not be stood in front of 30 men."

Marcus Reid looked at me for about 2 seconds.

"Right," he said. "Then what is it?"

I told him what it was, walking, in about 9 words, and his face did a thing I have seen twice.

"That is not going to be popular in there."

"No."

"Sarah is going to say she told you at 29 minutes."

"Sarah did tell me at 29 minutes," I said, "and I am going to say so, out loud, in front of every man in that room, before I say anything else."

Then I went through that door.

I had 11 minutes, and a football club, and a decision that was mine.