The boy in red: Forest for the Trees 4
The boy in red: Forest for the Trees 4
Free to read: SCOUTED play FM24.
Catch up on Chapter Three before you read Chapter Four.
The September sun falls from blue sky to sky blue. It strikes the stadium’s seats and is refracted upwards, back to the other blue, and around, trapped now in that oval bowl. There are places it can’t reach and long sharp shadows dissect the pitch and stands; in one corner it’s so dark you almost can’t tell its occupants wear a striking red.
On the pitch, one boy is used to wearing red in Manchester. He was flown to the city almost ten years ago and became a man here, somewhere across town. Anthony Elanga was scouted by both Manchester City and Manchester United but landed at the latter. Now he’s back in the city and he’s wearing red again.
It’s 0-0 at the Etihad Stadium and under the sun there are twenty minutes left to play. The champions have toiled but they have not breached. In fact, they’ve not really come close.
Their opponents break from shadow and into the light. Red blurs streak up the pitch. The ball moves down one wing and is cut back towards the box where Anthony Elanga stands as if he’s been there his whole life. Waiting. The boy in red does not think. He just shoots.
Last week, I had a meltdown. Only a month or two into my first managerial job, the cracks were showing. I lost the Premier League opener at Brentford - no disaster - but had also lost the dressing room (according to my captain) and my mind (according to me).
To remedy this calamitous start, I mentioned I was going to Football Manager bootcamp. I needed to learn how the game worked so I could save my job and this series from a premature, but admittedly very funny, death.
In my adventures across the FM-playing internet, I soon learn a simple truth about success in this game: you must cheat and steal tactics from someone else who knows what they’re doing.
Coincidentally, long-time SCOUTED reader and friend Gav recently, in another universe, became manager of Nottingham Forest. I reach out to say commiserations - it’s an awful job, you have to talk to Joe Worrall every day - and not to worry if it gets embarrassingly bad very quickly.
Then I notice he’s just battered Aston Villa 7-0.
Huh.
The mood at Wilford Lane is dour. Felipe stalks the halls like a wounded animal. Every few days you’ll get a whiff of cigar smoke and know somewhere Marinakis is hiding, alone in an empty room, waiting to pounce and grill you with questions over bread and tzatziki.
It takes me a few days to realise perhaps my mood is colouring everything else. Save Felipe, the players seem okay; they’re no strangers to losing. They’re all ready and willing to get going again.
I need something to knock my reverie, stir me into action. One morning, that thing walks through the door.
“My name is Gav,” the thing says, “and I want a job as a tactics coach.”
“WHAT A COINCIDENCE,” I say, “I WAS JUST SCROLLING ON TWITTER AND NOTICED —”
He puts a finger to his bearded lips. “You’re fooling nobody,” he says, “please stop. Just hire me.”
“Okay,” I say. “You’re hired as Chief Tactics Geezer. How do I fix this team?”
He comes alive. “First of all, you’re overcomplicating things. You’ve just arrived at a struggling side and you’re peppered them with information and instructions. Keep it nice and simple.”
He uncaps a pen and begins to scribble on my whiteboard. It’s a permanent marker. I raise a finger but think better of it and decide to let him have his moment.
He draws eleven circles in an asymmetric 4-2-3-1. “The centre-backs circulate the ball and hit long passes for counters. Our left full-back will overlap his winger and create overloads in attacking areas, leaving the winger free to move inside. Put Callum there.
“On the other side, Anthony sits much deeper. This allows him to pick the ball up and carry it, running wide and stretching the play. He makes the space and Morgan attacks it. His full-back sits in behind him, like this.”
I scribble some notes. “Uh-huh,” I say, and stroke my chin as if I have an original thought in my head. “What else?”
“Tell Morgan to create more and shoot less. And Taiwo presses like a madman - if he occupies the opponent’s centre-backs high up the pitch, Callum and Morgan have more space behind him.” He makes a small mistake and tries to rub it out with his thumb. Nothing happens.
With my new Tactics Geezer in place, I get back to my job with a newfound sense of purpose. I notice Chelsea got battered at the weekend too, so that helps.
With Deadline Day approaching, the market is heating up for everyone but me, because I’m broke. I agree to loan Scott McKenna to Bournemouth even though I have my misgivings because I really can’t be bothered to deal with him. I also sell young striker Larsson to Brommapojkarna for the equivalent of six sandwiches in central London. This is a win-win: his wages are gone and I can have lunch this week.
I have my eyes on a young right-back, Ruben Sanchez. Ideally I’d like to flex my pathetic finances to buy a young right-back and a flexible attacker to develop behind Anthony and Callum. I quickly agree a fee for Sanchez and his application for a work permit is rejected. Living in England in 2024 means you can’t even import a footballer for a million quid. Thanks, Nigel. I appeal.
The press pester me and I finally cave and agree to chat to a couple of reporters. They ask me to name a favourite for relegation. I tell them to fuck off because I have more respect for my peers than that; they then ask if I’m going to sign a guy called ‘Melamed’. I say, considering this is the first time in my life I’ve ever seen those letters arranged in that order, it’s unlikely.
Sanchez’s appeal is rejected so I assign him an ‘ESC’ slot, whatever that is. Signing complete! Excited, I pore over the details. His contract start date is…July 2024. How on earth have I managed that?
Trying not to think about the fact I desperately need players right now and have just made the world’s longest pre-order by accident, I turn my attention to the rapidly approaching game. Newcastle United are coming to the City Ground, and my Tactics Geezer and I are ready.
Gav’s handywork is immediately obvious. The overload on the left pumps Eddie Howe’s best-laid plans; we have the advantage every time we come forward. Callum has a cross cut out. Sangaré hits the bar from a corner. The start is electric.
Newcastle try to muster a response but they’re so narrow and we swallow possession in the middle - then we break. A beautiful, free-flowing counter sees Danilo in acres between the lines. He turns and feeds Taiwo, who slots cooly away.
I look at Tactics Geezer. He winks.
This was worth the whiteboard.
We rush forward again and Elanga strikes the post with an outrageous effort from range. Newcastle gather the rebound and try to play out, but a horrendous backpass is pounced upon by Taiwo, whose energy from the front is relentless - he scores again.
At half-time it’s 2-0 and we’re breezing. The team is unrecognisable from Brentford. Stripping back the instructions has allowed them to flow and the mood is infectious. I bounce giddy around the dressing room and tell them to keep blasting.
Newcastle pull it back to 2-2 within ten minutes of the restart. I’m starting to think just the sound of my voice is cursed.
Anthony Elanga is struggling to adapt to his new role. He’s so deep and isolated every time he brings the ball out; Newcastle swarm him and suffocate his dribbling. I bring Serge Aurier on behind him, hoping to add some energy and enthusiasm to that side.
I also introduce Andrey Santos and 18-year-old attacker Jack Nadin. I’m gambling it all on the youth.
It works. Within minutes, Aurier flashes a ball across the goalmouth - an angry butterfly could’ve nodded it in, but nobody’s there. No matter. It’s all us now. Newcastle are beaten back whenever they try to come forward. Only one team is going to win.
Nadin goes close. Andrey blasts over. Just as the energy of my youth begins to take its toll, the final whistle goes.
I can’t muster disappointment. It was magnificent. We look like a team. An actual football team. I could’ve kissed Tactics Geezer but HR specifically asked me not to.
Enthused with the performance (and with real-life addiction setting in), we blast straight towards our next game: Crystal Palace at home. I smell points.
Not even the news that Callum Hudson-Odoi is injured can stop this train, baby.
But Palace’s low-block might. It’s characteristically stubborn and we break on it over and over like waves on a beach. With Callum out, I switched Anthony to the left and asked Ola Aina, generally a full-back, to play the Swede’s deep-lying role on the right. Unfortunately, Aina lacks Ant’s explosive pace and skill, and can make nothing happen down that side at all.
Also, I realise my set-pieces are terrible as yet another corner catches Sangaré square in the face and ricochets into the stands. I need to find a Dead Ball Geezer ASAP and steal from them. It could be the difference at this level.
At half-time Palace have not had a single shot. We’re in total control but are lacking a cutting edge without Morgan and Callum. I notice Taiwo has been strangled out of the game; I tell him he has total freedom to roam for the ball and make something happen. Gav’s big brain is rubbing off on me.
Immediately after the restart, Ola Aina gets a little too excited and decides to jump through the air, studs first and screaming, like a missile with one objective: smash a Palace player’s chest in with his foot. He is sent off. Then Odysseas goes down injured - probably because he’s been twiddling his thumbs for an hour - and Matthew ‘Dawgfight’ Turner is forced into a debut.
My threadbare squad is now in the weirdest shape imaginable. But the advantage doesn’t goad Palace into, you know, doing an attack. They still just sit and wait.
Our ten-man tribulations are eased as I look to the bench and see Morgan, my love, giving me the eyes. He comes on for his first minutes of the season and immediately injects the pace and guile we’ve been missing. He breaks down the left and goes close.
But the clock ticks into stoppage and we are out of ideas. I settle for the point.
Then a freak bounce pushes the ball over the Palace line. Seconds are left. It falls to Taiwo Awoniyi. Three. He controls it. Two. His touch is good. One.
He scores.
All hell breaks loose. I run screaming around the technical area and break out the Alan Pardew. My Alan, Tate, is on his knees. Ola Aina weeps. Tactics Gav punches the air.
The ground is in chaos. A red maelstrom bounces like boiling water. Nobody is watching the screen, where the words VAR CHECK IN PROGRESS flash in white on purple.
…
NO GOAL.
We welcome Harrowgate, a League Two side, to the City Ground for a cup tie.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention to this one. Phil and I had just published our interview with Adam Wharton and I was watching people say nice things about us on Twitter.
So I was on my phone for the most of the game. I rotated and let some kids play, Morgan comes on to build fitness and immediately gets injured again, some other stuff happened and we won 2-1, blah blah.
Wait.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Battered and bruised, I stitch together a squad and head to Manchester. I don’t say anything, but I’m fully resigned to losing this one. Morgan. Poor Morgan. My boy. I think of him alone on the medical table.
It’s Manchester City. Treble winners. The greatest team in Europe. Buoyed as I am by the performances since Tactics Gav’s arrival, we wouldn’t have a chance here with Callum and Morgan. Without them? It could get ugly.
Winless, hopeless, we arrive at The Etihad.
The boy in red does not think. He just shoots. It’s instinctual, killer. With time he would miss. But he has no time.
The ball flies off his boot and beneath Ederson’s arm and comes to rest.
Somewhere in the shadowed corner of the stadium erupts an explosion of colour. Red flags and red shirts and red scarfs and a red noise that rises. That noise builds into a great roar of wonder and shrill disbelief. Limbs. They scream at their messiah below, a stick-figure sprinting around the pitch’s edge, windmilling his red shirt around his head as if he’s trying to generate enough force to take off. They scream his name: ELANGAAAAA.
They still scream it, hours later, on the trains and buses and in their cars. They scream it as if it helps them believe what they’ve witnessed is real. They check their phones over and over, making sure Sky Sports and BBC and the whole world saw what they saw, that this was no mass heatstroke hallucination. And, one by one, the headlines come through.
Champions felled: Nottingham Forest win at the Etihad.
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