Chapter 925 - 925: Konate

Ron had the barrier up at 20 to 8 on Thursday and I stopped the car under it with the window down.

"Ron."

"Morning."

"What is your surname?"

He looked at me over his glasses for a long time. Behind me somebody in a Golf tooted once.

"Pellow," he said. "With a W on the end. Why?"

"Emma is writing it on something."

"On what?"

"You will find out in the post." I kept the engine running. "And she told me to ask you something else, so I am. Why the barrier?"

Ron put a hand flat on the roof of my car.

"When my hip went I could not run any more," he said. "This was the nearest thing to a pitch they would give me. I can see 4 of them from that chair." He took his hand off the roof. "Go on. Your lad is on pitch 3, and the other lad has been stood there waiting for him since half 7."

Aaron beat the stutter 11 times out of 20 that morning, and Dion laughed at every 1 of the 11.

At 12:14 Jessica sent me 2 words, Signed for, and a photograph of a Royal Mail slip with an Old Trafford postcode on it.

At 4 o'clock it was on the bottom of the screen in the canteen.

SKY SOURCES: CRYSTAL PALACE MANAGER DANNY WALSH REJECTS MANCHESTER UNITED IN WRITING.

The canteen went quiet the way a canteen goes quiet, 1 table at a time. Wilfried Zaha put his fork down. Hakimi read it twice and looked round for me. Mamadou Sakho stood up from his table, came across the room, put both hands on my shoulders from behind for a moment, and went back and sat down without a word.

Nathan was in the doorway with his phone already ringing in his hand.

"Boss. They want a line. All of them."

"Confirm it."

"Just confirm?"

"Confirm it," I said. "And that is the last thing anybody at this club says about it."

Steve Parish rang at 10 past 4.

"I signed it," he said, before I had said hello. "I signed it under yours yesterday at 4 o'clock and I have been sat on it for 24 hours, and Danny, I am 53 years old and I nearly cried in front of Jessica Finch."

"Steve."

"In 2010 I could not get Manchester United to return a call about a loan player." He stopped. "I will not go on. I am going to go on. I am so..."

"Steve."

"Go and win at Arsenal," he said, and the line went dead.

Emma could not say it on air, so she said it to me.

EMMA. 16:21. Aisha says my Wednesday is back from next week, in writing, copied in. Sky says you are not going to Manchester. I am not allowed an opinion about either until Christmas. I have 2.

England beat the United States 3-0 at Wembley that night. JJ Johnson sat on the bench in a bib for 90 minutes and texted me at 22:31.

Rooney got his send off. I got a bib and a sandwich. And you told United no in a LETTER, gaffer. My mum is in bits.

Go to bed, I sent.

Your winger, he wrote. I want his number. I want to know what he does.

On the Monday, Dion Asare signed in Sarah's office with his mother sat next to him in her tabard, on her break. She read every page. She asked Sarah 3 questions about the 3rd page, and Sarah answered every 1 of them without looking at it. Then Mrs Asare handed her son the pen.

Ron lifted the barrier for him on the way out and said 1 thing through the gatehouse window.

"Number 33."

Ibrahima Konaté came to my office on the Tuesday afternoon with Rebecca behind him, and Rebecca had her card out before either of them sat down.

"90," she said. "Not 60 and see. 90."

I signed him from Sochaux in June 2017, on the phone in a car park, in French, because his agent told me nobody in England had bothered to. He was 18. In May the fans made him their player of the season.

In the second week of pre-season he broke a bone in his foot, and for 3 months he did his work on a bike behind the gym window with the boot on, watching the others through the glass. At the Riverside on the 31st of October he played the whole match and a shootout and walked off as if he had never been away.

"Sit down, Ibrahima."

He sat down. He is 6 foot 4 and he sits down like somebody folding a deckchair.

"Saturday," I said. "Tarkowski or you."

He looked at Rebecca, and then at me.

"Aubameyang," he said.

"Aubameyang."

"Then me." He said it without any noise in it. "James is very good. James is not fast enough for Aubameyang. I am."

James Tarkowski had taken it standing up in the corridor an hour before, with his arms folded.

"Fair," he had said. "He is quicker than me." And then, as I went: "If he gets done for pace, gaffer, I am telling everybody I said I should have played."

Konaté was still looking at Rebecca.

"The foot is fine," he said to her. "Tell him."

"I believe the scan," Rebecca said. "The scan says 90."

[IBRAHIMA KONATÉ. CONDITION 100%. MATCH SHARPNESS 71%.]

I looked at that 71 for a long time after he had gone.

Marcus had 1 clip ready for him, not 10, because Konaté does not like 10.

"Watch where he stands." He pointed. "Your left shoulder, half a yard off. He walks back on when their midfielder turns, and he goes on the turn, not the pass."

Konaté watched it 4 times without blinking.

"You will still be a yard behind him," Marcus said.

"Not for long," Konaté said, and went out.

Bray caught me in the car park on the Friday with his iPad under his arm.

"Their corners. 6 in a line across the 6 yard box, zonal, nobody behind the far end of the line." He turned the screen to me. "I built it for Scott. Ibrahima is 3 inches taller and he arrives later. I want to give it to him."

"How many times have you run it?"

"41 since last Tuesday. Scott scored 11. Ibrahima did 6 on Monday and scored 4." He tucked the iPad back under his arm. "And the foot is fine on the take off. I watched for it."

"Give it to him."

CRYSTAL PALACE: Pope. Wan-Bissaka, Dann, Konaté, Chilwell. Neves, Kovačić, Eze. Rodríguez, Benteke, Zaha.

Bench: Krul, Tarkowski, Hakimi, Højbjerg, Townsend, Perišić, Cartwright.

ARSENAL: Leno. Holding, Mustafi, Sokratis. Bellerín, Torreira, Xhaka, Kolašinac. Mkhitaryan, Iwobi. Aubameyang.

Arsenal had not lost since the 18th of August.

We got off the coach into the cold at quarter to 4, and the away end was already in, singing at an empty car park.

"DANNY WALSH! HE SAID NO! DANNY WALSH! HE SAID NO!"

Neves laughed out loud on the steps and looked back at me. I kept walking. Konaté walked behind me with his bag over his shoulder and did not look up at any of it.

Unai Emery was in the tunnel at 20 past 5 in a tracksuit top zipped to the chin, bouncing on his toes, and when he shook my hand he did it with both of his and did not smile.

"Walsh."

"Mr Emery."

"Europa League." He let go and held up 1 finger, and then 3. "You, 1. Me, 3." He put the hand away. "Today we play."

"Today we play," I said.

He went out ahead of his players, and the noise went up for him before I could see him.

"ARSENAL! ARSENAL! ARSENAL!"

Torreira went through the back of Rúben Neves after 40 seconds and the whole North Bank stood up and applauded the foul.

Thud.

"TORREIRA! TORREIRA!"

"VAMOS! VAMOS!" Emery, on the edge of his box, both arms going.

Neves got up and put the ball down, and Torreira was on top of him again before he had looked up. Every time we had it, 3 red shirts came at it.

Every time they lost it, they ran back as if the grass behind them was on fire. For 15 minutes we did not put 4 passes together, and I stood on the edge of my box and watched the best side in the country pushed back into its own half by a man with something to prove about a trophy.

"Mateo! XHAKA! Stand on Xhaka!"

Kovačić put a hand up without looking round.

"IBRAHIMA! Reste avec lui! Toujours!"

Konaté pointed at Aubameyang and then at himself, and did not look round either.

19 minutes.

Mkhitaryan picked it up on halfway with his back to goal, and turned.

Aubameyang was walking back onside off Konaté's left shoulder, and the moment Mkhitaryan's hips came round he went.

So did Konaté.

The ball went over the top into the channel and the pair of them went after it, and for 10 yards Aubameyang was a yard clear. The North Bank was already up. I was already thinking about Tarkowski on the bench and what I was going to say to him.

At 15 yards Konaté was still a yard down.

At 20 his stride opened out, the way it does when he stops thinking about the foot. At 25 he was level. At 30 he was half a yard in front, between the man and the ball, and Aubameyang had nowhere to go but through him.

He did not slide. He put his body across Aubameyang and let the ball run out for a throw, and stood there with both arms out wide.

The North Bank sat down.

From the corner at the far end:

"KO-NA-TÉ! KO-NA-TÉ! KO-NA-TÉ!"

Michael Steele let out a breath beside me that I think he had been holding since 4 o'clock.

Aubameyang put both hands on his head, and then he laughed, and said something to Konaté in French. Konaté told me afterwards.

"He said, nobody has caught me since Dortmund."

"What did you say?"

"I said, now somebody has," Konaté said.

They did not stop coming. Iwobi hit the bar on 31 from the edge of the box.

Clang.

"ARSENAL! ARSENAL!"

"Breathe," Sarah said, to nobody. "Breathe, breathe."