Chapter 902 - 902: Red

Prrp.

Michael Oliver did not run in. He walked, and he had his hand behind his own back before he was halfway there, and everybody in that stadium who could see him knew what was in it.

He got to Scott Dann and stopped, and took the yellow out first and held it up so that it was on the record, and then put it away and went back to the same pocket for the other one.

He does not hold them high. He held that one about level with his own shoulder and kept it there a good 3 seconds.

Scott Dann did not argue and he did not look at anybody. He took the armband off, pushed it into Joel Ward's hand and did not let go of the hand, and said 6 words, and then walked down that tunnel on his own in front of 83,109 people.

And the whole ground stood up and applauded him off. For a red card that was correct. I have not seen this crowd do that for anybody.

And then I went at Michael Oliver.

Not Bray. Me.

I know what the offside was and I know what the red was and both of them were right, and I went 12 yards out of that technical area anyway and said 3 things to a referee, and the middle one was about a linesman.

Zola came across from their technical area at Bray. Bray went at Zola. 14 men off 2 benches inside 4 seconds and 2 of Sarri's staff round the back of it, and Michael Oliver came through the lot of them with his arm in the air and put himself between the pair of them.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOH."

Then he came and found me.

There is no yellow card in the laws of this game for a man stood in a coat, and there will not be one until next August, and what a referee has instead of it is older than a card and a good deal worse.

He gave both benches a formal warning with the fourth official at his shoulder writing it down.

Then he sent me from the technical area.

And then I walked up that tunnel at 1-2 down with 10 men and 22 minutes left, in front of every one of them.

The Chelsea corner sang at me the whole way. Everybody else stood up.

Bray had hold of my arm at the tunnel mouth and I have known that man 15 months and he has never once put a hand on me.

"Boss. What do you want?"

There were about 9 seconds and a steward already at my shoulder.

"Nothing yet. Be on the phone in 4 minutes."

A steward called Marie put me in row 14 of the lower tier behind our own bench, in a seat with a number on it, between a man of about 60 in a 1990 shirt and a boy of 11 who did not look at the pitch again for 20 minutes.

I have not watched a football match from a seat since the 12th of March 2017.

Bzz.

"Yeah. Yeah, I have got you."

"Can you hear me?"

"Say again."

"Can you hear me."

"I can hear you and so can 400 other people, they are all looking at me." Bray was down on his haunches at the front of that technical area with a finger jammed in his other ear and his back to the football. "Go on. Quick."

On a touchline your eyes are level with the grass. You watch the ball because the ball is the only thing you can actually see.

40 feet up you watch grass.

Chelsea in 2 banks with a lead. 30 yards of nothing in front of their back 4. And Rúben Neves stood 50 yards away from every part of it with the best defensive midfielder alive keeping him company.

"Take Tarko off."

Nothing on that phone for a second and a half.

"Say again?"

"Take Tarko off. Hakimi on. 3 at the back, Joel, Mamadou, Aaron. Ben and Achraf go right up onto their full backs and they do not come back for anybody. And Cartwright for Ebs. Both, now, together."

"No. No, hang on. Hang on a minute." I heard him stand up. "We are a goal down. We have got 10 men. And you want me to take a centre half off."

"Yes."

"Because if I do that and they put 3 through the middle of us in 4 minutes, I am the one stood here on my own."

"I know you are."

"Then say it again so I have heard you say it."

"Take the centre half off."

"Right," Bray said, and I have known that man 15 months and he has never once said right to me like that.

The board went up on 71 with Ellis Cartwright's number on it, and again on 73 with Achraf Hakimi's, and the second one took a centre half off a football pitch.

The man in the 1990 shirt turned round and looked at me like I had lost my mind. He had no idea who I was. He said something to the woman next to him and she said something back and both of them looked at the board again, and 2 rows down a lad in a bucket hat had both hands on his head.

Bzz.

"Boss, Joel is asking me what we are doing."

"Tell him Alonso and Azpilicueta are the 2 highest full backs in this league. That is Sarri's whole football club."

"And?"

"And Ben and Achraf go and stand on them and do not come back for anybody. If they follow, Chelsea have got 2 fewer men in our half. If they do not follow, Achraf is running at a centre half." I had a hand over my other ear. "Either one of those is worth more than a centre half stood on our own 18 yard line with 17 minutes left."

"And if they go through the middle of us?"

"Then they go through the middle of us and I am wrong in front of 83,000 people."

It took 2 minutes. Hakimi went at Marcos Alonso on 75 and Alonso went 20 yards backwards with him and did not come out again, and on 76 Ben Chilwell got round the outside of César Azpilicueta and won a throw in the Chelsea half, and a stadium made a noise for a throw in.

Then Bray rang again and the phone was hot against my ear.

"Rúben wants off the leash." He had his hand over the mouthpiece and I could hear Neves behind him. "He is asking me. He has touched it 24 times, we are losing, and he wants the ball."

"No."

"Boss."

"No."

"17 minutes, a goal down, 10 men, and the best passer in this league is stood next to a corner flag being babysat." He had dropped his voice to say it. Bray shouts at me about twice a week and he drops his voice about twice a season. "Every man on this bench wants him on the ball. I want him on the ball."

I found Kanté with a boy of 11 shouting past my left ear.

[N'GOLO KANTÉ. CONDITION 88%.]

76 minutes of walking round after a 21-year-old and the man is on 88.

[PIERRE-EMILE HØJBJERG. CONDITION 71%.]

17 months of that thing arriving at the side of my eye and telling me what I already know. On Saturday at 76 minutes it told me something 10 seconds before I had to use it.

Kanté was fresher than my own midfielder. The walk has never cost him a yard and it was never going to. All it has ever taken off Chelsea is a footballer, and Chelsea get him back the second Rúben comes and asks for the ball.

"Bray. He stays."

"Boss, we lose this 2-1 and everybody in England asks what your 6 was doing."

"Then they ask. Tell him it is mine, tell him I said it from up here, and tell him he can come and find me on Monday about it."

"CRYS-TAL PA-LACE. CRYS-TAL PA-LACE."

I had that stadium from inside it for the last 22 minutes instead of in front of it.

It went lower. The Inter night was louder than this and the Inter night was nothing like it. This got down into your chest and sat there, a flat hard continuous noise with no words in it that did not go up for a throw in and did not drop for a goal kick, and you could feel it in the plastic of the seat.

The man in the 1990 shirt did not sit down again for 22 minutes. He had a programme rolled into a tube in his right hand and he beat it against the back of the seat in front of him on every Palace touch, and by the end of it there was no programme left.

I have been trying since Saturday night to write down the last 11 minutes in the order they happened and I cannot do it, because from row 14 it did not arrive in an order. It arrived all at once and it kept arriving.

Kepa came off his line and took a Benteke header on the thigh and the ball sat up and Ellis Cartwright had it, and he put it into the side netting from an angle nobody has ever scored from, and the whole ground groaned and then started singing again inside 3 seconds, which I have not heard a crowd anywhere do.

Rüdiger got his head in front of a Højbjerg shot and went down and stayed down for 40 seconds and the boy on my left booed him with both hands round his mouth and his dad did not tell him to stop, and a woman behind me was shouting at a linesman who was 70 yards away and could not possibly hear her and she knew he could not and she did it anyway.

Hakimi went outside Alonso for the 4th time in 13 minutes and put it flat across that 6 yard box and Ellis Cartwright missed it by the length of a boot. He came back with both hands over his face. Joel Ward got to him first, pulled the hands down off it, said 4 words and shoved him up the pitch by the shoulder.

Then Wilfried Zaha got it in the corner with Azpilicueta on one side of him and N'Golo Kanté coming across on the other, 10 men behind him, and he kept it.

19 seconds.

Row 14 counted every one of them out loud and so did I, and when Azpilicueta finally hacked it out for a throw the noise was the noise for a goal, and the man in the 1990 shirt turned round and hit me on the arm with what was left of his programme.