Chapter 901 - 901: Step Five: Chelsea

N'Golo Kanté went to Rúben Neves in the 40th second.

Not the 4th minute. The 40th second, and that man is 5 foot 6 and he won a league with Leicester and a league with Chelsea and a World Cup in July, and he put himself 5 feet off a 21-year-old's shoulder and stayed there for the next hour and a half.

By 20 past 4 that had cost me a centre half, a technical area and most of my voice.

Rrp. The sheet off the printer at 20 past 1 in a room with 4 people in it.

CRYSTAL PALACE: Pope. Ward, Dann, Tarkowski, Chilwell. Neves, Højbjerg, Eze. Townsend, Benteke, Zaha.

Bench: Krul, Sakho, Tuanzebe, Wan-Bissaka, Hakimi, Rodríguez, Grealish, Olise, Blake, Kirby, Cartwright.

6 changes, 66 hours after we landed from Germany, off a card with 1 red on it and 4 ambers and a name with a number beside it.

On Thursday I told Jack Grealish that if I ever overrule Rebecca on a calf then nobody in this building reads her card again. On Saturday Maurizio Sarri brought an unbeaten Chelsea to Wembley and I found out whether I meant it.

Achraf Hakimi read that sheet on the wall at 10 to 2 and did not say a word about it, and on Thursday morning he was on the front of a German newspaper.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka read it and went and sat down with his boots.

Steve Parish came into that room at 25 to 2 and he had a piece of paper in his hand and he did not know what to do with his face.

"Right, nobody say anything for a second, because I have said this out loud 4 times this morning and every time it comes out like I am lying."

"Steve."

"83,109."

Nobody in that room said anything, which was what he asked for, and it was clearly not what he wanted.

"And I have had that checked twice and then I had it checked again by somebody who does not like me." He had a piece of paper and he kept turning it over without reading either side. "Spurs had 80,827 in this ground against Liverpool last October and that is the most anybody has had at a league match in this country. Ever. So. Well."

"How did we sell it?"

"We did not sell it, Lorraine sold it. Lorraine, ticket office. She rang me Tuesday, you lot were on a runway somewhere, and she goes can I put the top tier out, and I said do not be daft, and then I said go on then, try it, what is the harm." He stopped. "3 hours and 40 minutes, Danny. 9,000 of them between 11 and midnight on the Wednesday, which is the night they were whistling at us in Germany."

Steve Parish has run this football club since 2010 and I have watched him do 40 interviews and I have never once seen him lose the end of a sentence.

"My dad was at the Burnley game." He was looking at the wall above my head. "51,482. Friday night, 1979, we go up as champions and they shut the gates on thousands. He talked about that for 30 years. I have got the stub in a drawer at home and he would have. Anyway."

He put the paper down on the table.

"Anyway. Go and do your job."

"WE ARE PALACE. WE ARE PALACE."

Terry Dolan sits in 232 in the upper tier now and has done since August, and at 10 past 2 he took 4 photographs of the empty seats around him, and he told Nathan afterwards it was because nobody at his work was going to believe him.

Ron worked the west turnstiles from half 12 and did not come inside.

Michael Oliver had the whistle. He does the big ones and he has never given this club anything it did not deserve in either direction.

PRRRRP.

Neves looked at Kanté, turned round, and started walking.

He walked him to the left touchline in the 3rd minute and stood there with him while the ball went somewhere else. Then he walked him 30 yards back towards our own goal and stood there as well.

By the 9th minute he had N'Golo Kanté out in the corner of our own box, which is a piece of grass no Chelsea midfielder has any business being on, and Kanté went into it with him and did not look at the ball once the whole way.

Pierre-Emile Højbjerg had the entire middle of Wembley Stadium to himself on 10 with nobody inside 25 yards of him, and he put it straight out of play.

It took Chelsea 11 minutes to find the grass that a side stops covering when it has spent 10 minutes watching a midfielder walk away from the football.

Willian went outside Ben Chilwell and got it straight back off him. Barkley slipped it into the front of our 6 yard box. Eden Hazard came across the face of Joel Ward and put it in off the outside of his left foot without breaking stride, and he had it in the net and was turning away before anybody in a red shirt had a hand up.

Fsst.

1-0, Chelsea, in the 11th minute.

3,200 people in the south east corner came up out of their seats and the rest of that stadium went somewhere I have not heard it go since April 2017.

Eberechi Eze had spent 24 minutes on the left with Azpilicueta on him, and Jorginho was sat in front of a back 4 with nobody near him and Jorginho does not want to defend and has never wanted to defend, and it is not a criticism of him, it is the whole reason Sarri buys him.

"Ebs. Other side. Get on the 5."

"On Jorginho?"

"On Jorginho. Every time he takes it, you are in his ribs."

6 minutes later the board went up in the 30th minute of a football match we were losing, and there was nothing wrong with Andros Townsend.

He had run 3.1 kilometres and put 2 crosses in. He came off a pitch at Wembley with both hamstrings working, put his hand out to Jack Grealish at the line, said 3 words, and went and sat at the far end of that bench.

"OOOOOOOH."

I have heard a crowd boo and I have heard a crowd applaud a substitution and this was neither of those. It came out of the upper tier first, low, and then the whole ground had it, and Terry Dolan says the man next to him in 232 stood up to get a better look at the board.

The fourth official asked Bray twice whether there was an injury. Bray said no twice.

Then, 3 minutes before half time, Jorginho took it off Rüdiger and Eberechi Eze was in his ribs for the 7th time in 18 minutes.

Thk.

He took it off him 40 yards out. Nobody in this division has taken it off Jorginho all season. Then he went at David Luiz on his own.

shhk.

Left, right, byline, and he stood it up with his weaker foot from a yard of grass he had no business getting to. Christian Benteke came between Rüdiger and Azpilicueta and went through the middle of the pair of them.

Boom.

1-1, and 20 to 3 in the afternoon.

RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

It came off 4 sides at once and it did not go back down. The drum in the Holmesdale end went straight through Michael Oliver's whistle for half time and 3 minutes past it, and Terry Dolan says the whole of 232 was stood up when the teams had gone.

Scott Dann was up before anybody else had sat down, one boot off, sock round his ankle, pointing a finger at me across a room.

"Over the top. Over the top, gaffer, every single time, because Jorginho has got his head up and Mamadou is not here and Tarko keeps dropping off him. Step us. Step us 5."

"You are 31, Scott."

"Do not." He laughed at it and there was nothing behind the laugh at all. "Do not do that to me. I have got 45 minutes of Eden Hazard in these legs and I know exactly what is left in them, and what is left in them is 5 yards up the pitch, not 5 yards back. And he does not go twice. Morata. He does not go in behind twice if he does not get the first one. He never has. Ask anybody."

Bray came in over the top of him without looking at him.

"We sit."

"Bray."

"We sit. We are 1-1, we are the hardest side in this division to play through, and in 20 minutes they are bored and Hazard is coming to feet instead of running past people. That is the whole match. We sit, we take a point off them, everybody goes home."

"Scott is on the pitch."

"Scott has played 4 minutes of league football since May." He said that flat, and to me, and not to Dann, which was worse. "4. And he has just done 45 against the best player in England."

I looked at Scott Dann.

[SCOTT DANN. CONDITION 84%.]

84 is a normal number at half time for a man who has run 5 kilometres.

There is no number in that thing for 31 years old. There is no number for 4 minutes of football since May, or for a man stood up in his socks in front of his own dressing room asking for something.

"Alright. Step 5."

Bray put the board down on a bench and did not say anything else about it, and Scott Dann went and got his boot.

PRRRRP.

18 minutes into the second half, Jorginho lifted it over the top exactly the way Bray said he would.

Álvaro Morata got the wrong side of James Tarkowski in 5 yards of grass that had not been there at half time, and he put it past Nick Pope from 8, and he was offside by about a yard and the flag stayed down.

There is no video assistant in a Premier League match this season and there will not be one until next August.

"NOOOOO. NO. NO. NO."

1-2, and a linesman on the far side with his flag down by his knee and 2 of my players 15 yards from his face.

The 4 stewards in front of the Holmesdale end all turned round to face the crowd at the same moment. They are trained to do that. They have not had to do it at a Palace match in 3 years.

5 minutes later Hazard went past Scott Dann on the outside and there was nothing left in that man's legs to do about it except put a foot across him 40 yards from goal, and he had a yellow in his name from the 27th.

Prrp.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the support.