Glory Of The Football Manager System

The away end, two thousand Palace fans who had driven down the A23 on a Saturday morning, erupted. The travelling support had been singing for seventy-eight minutes without reward, and the reward, when it came, was worth every second of patience.

The final twelve minutes were professional. Dann redeemed himself with three clearances and a block that prevented Knockaert from equalising. Sakho won everything in the air. Wan-Bissaka made two tackles that should have been anatomically impossible.

And Hennessey, who had started because Pope was being rested for the Arsenal second leg, punched a last-minute corner with the authority of a man who had been Palace’s first-choice keeper for three seasons and who was not about to let the tenth consecutive win slip through his gloves.

The whistle blew. Brighton 1-2 Crystal Palace.

Ten consecutive Premier League wins.

[Brighton 1-2 Crystal Palace. Goals: Benteke 29’, Pato 78’. Brighton: Dunk 53’.]

[PL: P24 W19 D3 L2. Points: 60. Position: 2nd.]

[10 consecutive PL wins. A new Crystal Palace record.]

I shook Hughton’s hand. The Irishman, who had managed at the highest level and who treated every opponent with the same quiet, professional respect, said: "Your midfield two are the best partnership in the league right now. That sequence for the second goal. I’ve seen Xavi and Iniesta do that. I’ve never seen it in the Premier League."

I said: "Thank you, Chris. That means more than you know."

In the away dressing room, I kept it short. "Ten in a row. Nobody at this football club has ever done that. You have. Remember it. Now shower, get on the bus, and rest. Arsenal on Wednesday."

On the bus home, I sat in the front seat and watched the reactions unfold on my phone.

The Sky Sports studio was running a special segment. Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville, the two pundits who had been tracking Palace’s season since August, were sitting behind the desk with the Premier League table filling the screen behind them.

The table showed it plainly: Manchester City, 66 points, first. Crystal Palace, 60 points, second. Six points. The gap that had been fourteen in October, that had been ten at Christmas, was now six. Six points with fourteen matches remaining.

Neville spoke first.

"I want to start with the table. Because the table has changed the conversation. Three months ago, we were asking whether Crystal Palace could finish in the top four. Whether the Champions League was realistic. That conversation is over. It’s done. Sixty points in January. They’re going to finish in the top four. The mathematics are almost impossible to argue against. Even if they win half their remaining matches, they finish on seventy-odd points, which is Champions League football."

Carragher: "So the question has shifted. It’s no longer can they make the Champions League. It’s can they win the league."

Neville: "And I think we have to take it seriously. Six points. With fourteen matches left. Manchester City are extraordinary, but they’ve dropped points three times in the last six weeks. They drew at Burnley. They lost at Liverpool. They drew at Newcastle. City are human. And Palace are playing the best football of any team in this league right now, including City."

Carragher: "The issue is the squad depth. City have two world-class players for every position. Palace have one. And Palace are competing on four fronts. The Premier League, the Europa League, the League Cup semi-final, the FA Cup. At some point, the schedule catches up. Bodies break. The rotation model that Rebecca Lawson has built is exceptional, but it can’t defeat biology forever."

Neville: "That’s fair. But let me push back. Look at the last ten wins. Palace have used twenty-three different players. Twenty-three. In ten matches. Pope and Hennessey sharing the goalkeeping. Dann and Tarkowski rotating with Konaté and Sakho. Kirby stepping in when Kovačić or Neves need rest. Blake scoring off the bench against Chelsea. Pato scoring off the bench today. The squad is not deep in the way City’s is deep. But it’s functional. Every player in that squad knows the system, knows his role, and can perform it at Premier League level. That’s not depth. That’s coaching."

Carragher nodded. "Ten consecutive Premier League wins. For Crystal Palace. Manchester City have done it. Chelsea, under Conte, did it last season. Liverpool, under Klopp, have done it once. These are clubs with budgets five, six, seven times the size of Palace’s. And Danny Walsh’s team have just matched them. Ten in a row. At the Amex. With a squad that cost less than City’s bench."

Neville: "But here’s the thing that nobody is saying out loud, so I’ll say it. Six points. Fourteen matches. If Palace beat City at Selhurst Park in March, the gap could be three. Three points. In March. Crystal Palace, three points behind Manchester City, with ten matches to play. That is a title race. That is not a fairytale. That is mathematics."

Carragher: "And the midfield partnership of Kovačić and Neves is the best I’ve seen in the Premier League this season. And I include De Bruyne and Silva in that conversation. The sequence for the second goal at Brighton, the one-two-three-four touch sequence in the centre circle, that’s Barcelona football. That’s Pep’s Barcelona, Xavi and Iniesta, the tiki-taka that changed the sport. And it’s happening at Crystal Palace."

Neville, leaning forward: "Let’s talk about the Champions League properly. Sixty points. January the twentieth. If they maintain this form, they finish with over ninety points. Ninety points. That would be the fourth-highest total in Premier League history. The Champions League anthem at Selhurst Park is not a question of if anymore. It’s a question of when."

Carragher: "And they’ve got the Europa League. AC Milan in February. The League Cup semi-final second leg at the Emirates on Wednesday. They are competing on four fronts with a twenty-nine-man squad and a manager who is twenty-eight years old. Twenty-eight. He’s younger than half the pundits on this panel."

Neville smiled. The rare Neville smile. "Danny Walsh. Moss Side. Convenience store. Sunday league. Crystal Palace. Ten consecutive wins. Six points off the top. Someone is going to make a documentary about this."

Carragher: "Netflix already are."

The social media reaction was a cascade.

The official Palace account posted a graphic: ten red and blue stripes, each one representing a win, the dates and scores listed beneath. It was shared forty-three thousand times in the first hour.

The fan accounts amplified it.

@PalaceAcademy, the three-hundred-and-forty-thousand-follower account run by a teenager in Norwood, posted a thread breaking down the tactical evolution of the Kovačić-Neves partnership across their three matches together, complete with passing maps and heat maps and a concluding line that read: "This is the best central midfield partnership in Europe right now and I will not be taking questions."

The thread was liked a hundred and twelve thousand times.

The Brazilian Pato fan account, which had two hundred and forty thousand followers and posted exclusively in Portuguese, uploaded a clip of the winning goal with the caption: "O Pato está de volta." Pato is back. The clip was viewed three million times by Sunday morning.

In Nairobi, James Ochieng posted a photograph from the sports bar in Westlands. The screen showing the final score.

Forty-seven people visible in the frame, Palace scarves raised, the bar lit by the glow of the television at two in the morning Kenyan time. The caption: "10 in a row. We never sleep. We never stop. From Westlands to the Amex. Crystal Palace."

The Palace supporters’ group on Reddit, which had grown from eight thousand members in August to over sixty thousand, posted a poll: "Is this the greatest run in Crystal Palace history?" The results, by Sunday evening, were ninety-seven percent yes.

A man in Thornton Heath, whose name I would never know, spray-painted "10" on the wall beside the Eze mural on the high street. The number was three feet tall, painted in Palace blue, and by Monday morning it had been photographed by every local news outlet in South London.

And in Moss Side, in a flat above a chip shop that Danny Walsh had once lived in, Frankie Morrison sat in his armchair, his flat cap on the table, his television showing the Brighton highlights on Match of the Day, and he watched the Kovačić-Neves sequence for the second goal and said, to nobody in particular, because Mrs. Morrison was in the kitchen and wasn’t listening: "That’s the best football I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been watching for sixty years."

Mrs. Morrison called from the kitchen: "Are you talking to the television again?"

"I’m talking to the boy," Frankie said. "He can’t hear me. But I’m talking to him anyway."

[MATCH REPORT: Brighton 1-2 Crystal Palace.]

[10 consecutive Premier League wins. New club record.]

[PL: P24 W19 D3 L2. 60 pts. 2nd. 6 points behind Man City (66 pts). GD: +72.]

[Overall: P43 W37 D3 L3. GF: 105. GA: 35.]

[Kovačić-Neves: Hughton: "I’ve seen Xavi and Iniesta do that. I’ve never seen it in the Premier League."]

[Sky Sports: Neville: "Six points. Fourteen matches. That is a title race." Carragher: "The Champions League is no longer a question of if. It’s when."]

[Social media: Palace graphic shared 43K times. Pato goal clip: 3M views. Nairobi supporters’ club: 47 people at 2am. Reddit poll: 97% say greatest run in club history.]

[JJ Johnson: 12 seconds in a corridor. 4 goals since the phone call. "I did what you told me." Hughton confirms: best player in training every day. The promise holds.]

[Next: Arsenal (A), Emirates, Carabao Cup semi-final second leg. Wednesday, January 24th. Palace lead 1-0.]

[Frankie Morrison, talking to the television: "That’s the best football I’ve ever seen."]

***

Thank you Sir nameyelus for the Super Gift.