7.12 - Compartmental [T3]

12.

Monday, December 11

--EXPOSITIONAL--

Emma was still zonked when I opened my eyes. It was one of those rare mornings when I didn't trudge out of sleep over the course of half an hour but was instantly wide awake, the kind of alert you get when you hear someone breaking into your cute cottage in a secret location near Chester.

I eased from under the duvet like a ninja, went down the stairs without creaking them, and listened.

Nothing.

I ducked behind the kitchen island (so that baddies wouldn't see the glare from my phone) and checked our external cameras, the ones that I had installed when a pine marten was living in the attic, terrorising me.

Every camera was clear.

So what had I heard? After another minute of utter silence, I convinced myself that it was probably just the sound of fifty different thoughts trying to crash through the open door of my consciousness, with all fifty getting stuck in the doorframe. The visit of Ipswich Town, the need to win, the controversy that would surround that match, West Didsbury, Gibraltar, Temps Perdu, my property empire, Chinese sponsorships, the women's team, the men, the youth teams, little baby Bob Dylan, a sick girl called Helen, the future of Angel, the future of football... my new perks.

Perks?

I had cursemail, which told me that my latest Perk Construction Kit request had been approved. It was a pretty stupid one, one born of frustration. I had asked the Kit to quote me a price on getting experience points by watching games on TV, and it had said, 'FUNCTION NOT AVAILABLE.' Annoying how dismissive it was! I had been reading tons of Match Commentary in the Archive and had been irked by all the mentions of Roberts. 'Call him Wibbers, you dick,' I had said. So in a fit of pique I had requested that the Match Commentary should use player nicknames when those had been set. Lo and behold, that was now an option, for just 100 XP.

It had been a stupid request, but the really stupid thing was that I would probably buy that perk. Like, right away. Was that stupid? It felt stupid. I forced myself to wait a minute.

Whether it was the time zones or not getting enough exercise in Italy I wasn't sure, but I was hyper and really wanted to burn some calories. I turned on the soft side lamps and had the same thought I'd been having more and more - I really needed a home gym. The cottage was nice, cosy, private, and I had toiled to turn the garden into something special, but there were times I needed to be able to go to a room where Emma wouldn't be able to hear me, where I could go feral on the treadmill, where I could watch a match while listening to a podcast while listening to banging tunes.

As quietly as poss, I rotated the sofa about 60 degrees, laid down my fancy yoga mat, and did some of the moves Magnus had taught me.

I reflected on my weekend. On Saturday I had been to watch Everton, partly to meet their director of football, partly to gorge on XP. On Sunday, I'd co-managed the women as they battered Liverpool in Liverpool. And I had requested my one perk per day, with mostly good results.

God Save the King 3 had been approved. The imps had given it the subtitle 'Bri'ish Bulldog' and it was all about physicality and getting stuck in. For a cost of 6,000 XP, it would allow me to improve a male player's Aggression, Bravery, Determination, Marking, Positioning, Tackling, Work Rate, or Influence, one time per season. I would probably never want to improve Aggression or Bravery, but Positioning was a really good one for a defender, and any player without Determination was effectively useless.

Then GSTK 4 came through, and it contained the rest of the Attributes. These were mostly technical, so the imps were justified in choosing the name SILK! It was also 6,000 XP and covered Anticipation, Dribbling, Crossing, Long Shots, Teamwork, Decisions, and Technique. I would have paid a lot to split that selection into two or three perks!

My top priority was buying GSTK 2, 3, and 4 as soon as poss, then doing the same with the women's equivalent, and for that reason I was planning a match-watching blitz in the coming weeks. These were significant advances in my powers, and while I was earning the XP to pay for them I would be generating many more ideas.

The more I exercised, the less I worried about it.

Within ten minutes, I was sweating. Within twenty, my mind was clear.

I bought the perk that told me about a referee's fitness.

I bought Forex for Dummies 2, which allowed me to change numbers from weekly amounts to monthly or yearly.

And I bought the stupid nickname one.

It barely made a dent in my stash.

XP balance: 2,200

With a smile, I shifted into the famous yoga pose 'The Mighty Mancunian' and let the cares of the world ease out of my muscles.

***

--STRATEGIC--

Emma creaked down the stairs and emerged into the kitchen. She was swaddled in the most adorably cosy bath robe, had mega nap face, and was reacting to the light as though she was snowblind. The Wet Wet Wet perk told me there was no snow on the horizon, but I was hoping for a white Christmas. (I was planning to build a snowman at Emma's parents' house, slip a black-and-white striped shirt on it, and give it a fork for a nose. I would proclaim that it had got more points from Chester than Newcastle United.)

My wife squinted in my direction. "Babes, you're up early."

"Couldn't sleep. Or rather, I could sleep, then was mega awake. Knocked out a quick yoga, achieved total clarity and oneness with the universe, and not to overstate the facts, achieved enlightenment."

She nodded, took a step towards the kettle, then stepped back. She eyed the wall that led to the front door. "Oh, no. Not the Post-Its again."

"What, this?" I said, pointing to the wall. "Your husband has been getting shit done. That's me, by the way. Husband."

"Should I call Henri? Book the next intervention already?"

I smiled, because I was crazy about her even when she was talking early-morning gibberish. "Never interrupt a hero when he's making the opposite of a mistake. Sun Tzu said that."

She groaned. "It's too early for any kind of sun. Why is that light so bright?"

I eyed my Post-Its. "You probably have questions about the arrangement. I'm making a kind of master list of all the things I need to think about in the coming weeks. I started by making columns such as clubs, players, and moneh, but that proved inadequate, so I pivoted into creating what I'm calling circles of meaning versus vectors of intent. The circles overlap, like Venn diagrams, and look! It's shaped like a human brain. Every Post-It isn't just a single call to action, it's a node in a network. This," I said, gently touching some of the notes, "should be studied."

"If you've got mad energy, can you make brek?"

I teleported behind her and opened the fridge. "Avocado on sourdough toast! Fried egg. Boiled egg and soldiers. Swiss-style horse food mashed into a just-about-palatable mush."

"Do you mean muesli?"

"Yes. What do you want? What does your inner pantry request?"

"Porridge."

I grabbed a pot and placed it on the stove. I pulled out a clever space-saving shelf, reached for the oats, and was discombobulated when my fingers touched a jar. "Huh? You rearranged the - " I frowned. Emma had taken literally everything in the pull-out pantry and put it into one of a hundred glass Tupperwares. "Uh, what's this? You've reorganised everything. You've de-organised everything. It's the world's first atomic kitchen."

"It's all compartmentalised."

"You can't spell compartmental without mental. This is wild. You've always enjoyed putting things in other things but this is next level. This is giving me serial killer vibes. Do you need an intervention? "

She pointed. "Oats are there, in the cereals and grain section. This arrangement is sublime, babes. People will study this."

"But what's the point? I have to re-learn where everything is. It's a total hassle. And without the boxes, we don't know the best-before dates on anything. As an elite athlete, I could literally die if I eat an old cornflake." I suffered in silence for five seconds, then started to make my beloved some porridge. 

Because I had reacted so maturely, Ems had the space to be equally mature. "That's a good point about the dates, but you know what the experts say - food shouldn't have dates on. You should smell it."

"Hmm," I said. I couldn't use words because if I did, it would be crystal clear how amazingly hard I disagreed with her. I focused on my task, giving it Magnus-levels of mindfulness. It wasn't long until I threw my hands up in triumph. "Bosh! That is a porridge and a half. That is extraordinary stuff. You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking words like viscosity. I'm thinking... affinity. The affinity of these porridge molecules is so strong that they contain slow-release heat. It will warm you for hours. I think... Have I made it so well that it has actually gone non-Newtonian?" I poked at it before handing the bowl over. It felt firm but yielding, squishy yet squash-proof.

Emma spooned some into her mouth. "Hot," she said.

"Oh my God," I said, mock exasperated. "You've got to blow on it. Have you never had porridge before? You've got to blow on it!"

She chuckled, which was hard because she was trying to keep the blob in her mouth without it touching any of the sides. "What have you been maniacking about?"

I took a teaspoon and tasted what I had made. "Hmm. Could have been more liquidy?"

"I like it like this."

"Good. Will I make you a coffee? So, there's loads going on, as you know. When I woke up, I realised it had all got a bit oppressive, so I've been trying to write everything down to help me focus on things one at a time." I clicked my tongue a few times. "I think it's had the opposite effect. Everything's more entangled. It's all jumbled up."

"You need to compartmentalise. Tell me one decision and I'll make it for you."

I smiled. "What formation should I play against Ipswich?"

"What do they do?"

"They're yet another 4-2-3-1 team and they're just about the same level as us. They've wasted a hundred million, we've got home advantage, the ref won't be an issue."

Emma thought about it, said, "3-5-2, Wibbers as a split striker, job's a good 'un."

"Amazing insight," I said.

"Are you going to do that?"

"Absolutely not. We're starting in a Christmas Tree formation."

She frowned. "That's 4... 3-2-1. Shaped like a..." She angled her palms so that her fingertips were touching.

"Yeah."

"Why? You want narrow... You want bodies in the middle?"

"Nope, I'm doing it because it's nearly Christmas." That formation came with a slight boost when used in the month of December. "And it will surprise them. Absolutely zero chance they have prepared for this. There's a good chance they will change things at half time."

"When you will change things yourself, and have your wicked way with them for ten minutes until they A, work out what you've done, and B, get the message out to their players."

"Yup."

"You are a cheeky little chappie. So if you've got the formation sorted and you've got the narrative of the match, what's on your mind?"

I rubbed my chin. It was always hard to explain curse things, but some elements were harder than others. My new God Save the King powers were particularly hard. How could I say that I would wave a magic wand and make a player better? I didn't need to tell anyone what I was doing, but at Premier League level, everything was a data point. If a player was suddenly 3% faster than they had been the previous week, there was a chance people would get suspicious. That could lead to extra drugs tests or it could lead to me being burned as a witch.

My solution was both elegant and brute force. I would send two or three players on specialised training courses: one would get an appropriate God Save the King (or Queen) boost that I could easily explain, while the others would be genuine experiments. If boosting a specific Attribute could happen on a certain course, I wanted to know about it.

"Remember Chester went to The Vale and used the Welsh HQ? We got a good little boost from that. I've always wanted to get more specific, more, uh, high-performance, and now I've got the mental capacity to think about experiments. For example, sending some lads to Loughborough to learn from Team GB's Olympic sprinting coaches."

"Oh! That's a great idea! Why haven't we done that before?"

"Money. Time. Let's say I send Matt Rush there for two weeks. That's two weeks he can't play, can't score the goal that would keep his manager in a job. No manager in the country would even think about doing what I want, but I'm the only manager who has total job security. Sprinting is an obvious one, but it's not just physical things. I'm looking at top neuroscientists doing weird projects with VR and hypnosis and all sorts."

"To improve decision-making?"

"For example, yeah. Er... please don't tell anyone about this, not even your dad. This is weird stuff I'm doing."

"Weird by your standards?"

"What an odd comment! As you know, I'm achingly conservative. But seriously, please don't blab. If these experiments are a hit, great, I'll tell people. But the people of Chester don't need to hear that I'm spending fifty grand of their money sending players to stargazing retreats or to take magic mushrooms in a wigwam or whatever."

"Oh, boy."

"I doubt we will do that but nothing's off the table. If we do things how other teams do it, we'll never escape our place in the food chain."

"You want to grow sharper teeth by taking mushrooms under the supervision of a Welsh shaman."

"What I want is improvement. I have started with the question: in which ways do I want players to improve, and which players should I send? From there, I've looked into various courses. Even with Premier League money, some of this stuff can be prohibitively expensive, like sending a guy to train with NASA, and I can't have players away from the squad for long stretches, so I've concluded that I should do this with a maximum of four guys per season. Or," I said, "with one guy going to four different places to learn four different things."

"Huh," said Emma. "So what have you decided?"

"I haven't decided anything. It's one of the most complex decisions I've ever had to make. I thought it would be really simple but it's like peeling an onion; there are always more layers."

"You always say that but remember we peeled that onion in the name of science? We ran out of layers after about eight, didn't we, babes? But go on, tell me what's making you cry."

"Cry? Oh, because of the onions. Yeah, you need some caffeine in you." I finished her coffee and slid it over. She was still pecking at the porridge. "Yeah, so, there are some basic principles to this super duper extra special training. One is that I only want to do it with players who seem to have peaked. Giving it to someone who's still improving is a waste because they're going to keep getting better whether I intervene or not. Does that make sense?"

"Yeeeees," she said, slowly, because agreeing with me meant going along with the fiction that human beings had limits, and that one could know precisely when someone had hit them. "Coffee is for closers and super duper training is for the peaked."

"Top. So the next principle isn't quite a hard and fast rule but basically, this training is for younger players. If I can squeeze an extra two percent out of a 32-year-old, great, but he's going to start declining soon and before you know it, he will have retired, so what's the point? Marek, Owen, Dumi, those guys will want to keep playing, I think, even at lower levels, but lots of guys can't stand going down to League One when they have been playing at the top level in front of fifty thousand. Playing in Gibraltar in front of one man and his dog doesn't give the same rush. Plus an older guy is gonna have far less time to benefit from being better, and the club aren't going to get higher transfer fees. Peter Bauer would be an exception because he unlocks entirely different ways of playing. That investment pays off in prize money and glory."

"Okay. No old fogies."

"Let's look at Lewis Lamarre. DOVE says he will peak next month."

"Already? Oh, no."

"He's still mint. He's gonna be about 156 out of 200. If I take him out of the team for a bit and give him this super tailored, super specific training with world-class experts, we might get him up to 160. He's twenty-eight years old and he's really useful in the squad. Flexible, too - I can play him anywhere on the left. Superficially, he's a really good candidate for super duper training."

"But 28 is a bit old, is it?"

"A little bit, because I don't want to sell him yet and I have to think about his transfer fee. So the key question is, when do I sell him? Which brings me to thinking, what's the squad gonna look like in two years? If a player isn't in the squad in two years, do I want to use super duper training on them? Not really. I want to improve my future starting eleven, if it's at all possible, and because I'm thinking about Champions League semi-finals and things like that, I want players who can hit 170 as a minimum. Bumping Peter Bauer is a no-brainer, but he's not at his peak. Here," I said, going to the sofa to get a sheet of paper. "I've sorted the players into two sets. Two Tupperware containers. One side are the Dragonballs, the guys who are going to win me the league. The other side are the squad players. Guys who are good enough to play in the Prem and do a job."

I slid the sheet over and watched her face. She reacted very strongly. "So many names!" Typically, she started with the squad players. "Owen, Banksy, Lewis, Cole, Dumi, Edgar, Leo, Jimmy, Des Walker - he's that new kid from Scotland, right? - Gabby, Nasa - what's the order on this, babes? - Mikko, Errol, Gwilym, Jack Knapper - I'm more out of touch with the new players than ever - Tony Herbert, Peter Brown - What? Who? - Toquinho. I don't know half of those names."

"Mikko is the Finnish winger. Errol is the striker I paid 4 million quid for. Gwilym is the Welsh Wibbers."

"Oh, right, yeah!"

"Jack Knapper is a wonderkid from Luton. I don't know how good he'll be but it's very possible he'll move into the key players list. Peter Brown is a Welsh right winger who is very promising but again, I can't tell exactly how good he'll be. He looks absolutely dreamy, but so do a lot of young players right until they splat into a glass ceiling."

Emma re-read the list. "Gabby's only a squad player?"

"Yeah. But bear in mind, I'm talking about a squad that's as good as Man City's. As good as Bayern Munich's. Being our backup striker is on par with being a star for, I don't know, Tottenham."

She pushed the paper to the right so she could focus on the players listed on the left. These were the ones with elite PAs. She was fine until she got halfway down. "Who the hell is Jardel?"

"He's that huge Brazilian guy who's at the Brig's club in Wales. He came over based on a DOVE recommendation and he was running around kicking everyone." I stabbed the page. "See also Djalminha. He's the left winger who falls out with all his coaches. Both are mint, but neither will peak for five years."

She tapped the top. "You've at least taken the time to list this group by position but you've not got a goalkeeper."

"I know. I'm looking at players 170 or above. Banksy is going to be 155. He's gonna be a strong candidate for super special training, but again, that's years away. We could win the league with Owen, mayyyyybe, if he can peak, but probably I'll need to buy someone. I'm thinking the season after next I will splash the cash in a big way. We will be in the Champions League with huge guaranteed money and I'll be able to get the best goalie from Spain, Italy, Germany, wherever.

"By the way, look how stacked we are already. That's nineteen names; I don't need to spend loads on transfers to create a dominant team, which means I can go wild on infrastructure. Not too wild, because there are gaps. I don't have many wide midfielders. Djalminha's my only left winger but he's years away, so I've moved Cheb from the squad list to the key players list because he can play either side. He's one special training away from being the level I need. But," I said, slumping in an amused way, "I don't think we'll be able to keep him long enough to win the league with him."

"Is he not happy?"

"He's happy, he's loving life in Chester, but he was on the Bayern Munich fast track so he'll want a big move this summer or next. Big wages, guaranteed Champions League football, all that jazz. I don't mind - we have to sell some players to keep the flywheel turning. But it does make me wary of using special training on him."

Emma sipped her coffee while she skimmed the list of names, then she went through it more slowly. "The Dragonball defenders are Helge, Peter, Tomzilla, Magnus, Rushy, Roddy. Are you happy with that?"

"Yeah, very. Magnus can play anywhere so in theory I've got two left backs, three centre backs, three right backs. The asterisk is that I don't actually know how good Magnus will be. I've made - ah, no, let's come back to that."

She kept reading. "For DMs, you've got Youngster and Vini. I'm pleased for Vini."

"He's 169 on DOVE but you give him one dose of super duper training and bosh, he's 170. And he's young enough that his wage demands won't be absurd. And he's a good lad, even though he's a bit of a lad."

"Then you've got loads of midfielders. Djalminha we talked about. Charlie Cullen, Dan Badford, Jardel, Jari Köngäs, Emiliano, Ludo, Cheb." She looked at me. "Emiliano?"

I nodded. "He's going well at College, becoming more a team player." And when he peaked, I could literally inject more Teamwork into his veins. That wouldn't raise his PA by much, but it would help him to become the best version of himself. "He's CA 115 at the mo. Call it 120 by the end of the season and if we're in the Championship, I'll bring him back. I'll even be tempted if we're still in the Prem. Maybe he'll do six months at Saltney first."

"Focus, babes."

I smiled. "This is the problem though. Once you start thinking about the future there are so many connections and possibilities and dependencies."

She adjusted the position of the paper. "Wibbers, Ruud, Bertie. Is that enough strikers?"

"Yeah. We often play with one actual striker. We will have Ruud as the main guy until he wants to move on, by which time we hope Bertie's ready to step up to be the big dog. Wibbers as the support striker, playing deeper, sometimes giving us a wide option. All in all, that's an amazing squad. Goalie and at least one wide player and we are golden. If we did 4-2-3-1 with this lot, we could easily get an average of 180. That's the best team in the world, by far. The trick is to get them all to their peak before they want to move away."

"How far are they from their peaks?"

"Amazing question," I said, going back to the sofa to pick up a second sheet of paper. "I tried to project their CAs to how they could look near the end of next season."

Ems skimmed it, taking in most of the info with one pass, then going back in more detail. "This is not 180." She sipped her coffee while her analytical brain kicked into overdrive. "Helge 155. Peter 160. Tomzilla 140. Ludo 130, Jardel 80. Your best guy is... Cheb. Why have you circled these numbers? Cheb 168, Magnus 160, Dan 150."

"Cheb is very likely to leave. If Magnus and Dan cap this season or next, they're off that list and they go into the squad section. What it means for this exercise is that those three players are not targets for special training this season or next."

"So we can cross out Jardel and Djalminha. Cross out these three. Which means... I don't know what it means."

I smiled. "What it means is that no-one on this list gets special training this season or next."

"Wow," she said, dangerously quiet. "You just told me it had to be someone from here!"

"This is high-level strategic thinking, babes! This is reason and logic in action! We're eliminating options. In the future, only these guys will be getting special training, probably, but they've got such high ceilings, we're talking three years from now! A lot could change by next season, but what do I do now? That's the question."

"What about these squad guys?" she said, going back to the first page. She looked up suddenly. "What about you?"

"I'm not a candidate," I said, trying to speak simply, but I couldn't avoid veering into smuggery. "I have no ceiling."

Emma's lips twisted. "Your cockiness never fails to floor me. Okay so Banksy hasn't capped, Dumi and Edgar are too old. Leo?"

"I'm gonna sell him in the summer."

Emma winced. She didn't like it when I spoke about discarding players she liked, and she was showing no sign of ever getting used to it. "Where's Murray?"

"He's an Everton player. I was there on Saturday watching their game, and I told their DoF they could have him back. He should go somewhere else and get minutes. Top of the Championship, maybe."

"Aw, babes," said Emma. "You promised to try harder with people."

"I tried! He isn't vibing with the project. It's not a big deal. We made him a better player, Everton got paid, and when he's gone we'll have a tight-knit squad of true believers. Unity matters. You're just gonna upset yourself if you try to talk me out of it."

She tutted then returned to the list. "It has to be Lewis, then. He's older than you'd like, but he's important and he's going to be ready for the special training. Or Cole Adams. He's a good age for it. Wait, where's Pascal?"

"Ah," I said, standing up and pottering around. "Pascal. Yeah."

"What? Are you mad at him again?"

I laughed. "No. He has peaked, he's young, he has the potential to be a huge asset if we invest in him for long enough. But he's PA 138. Realistically, in two years he doesn't even get in the squad player list. Is that bad? He's a Championship level player and he will be an elite manager; he's going to have a great life. I don't think it's especially brutal for me to say he's too far from the cutoff point to get what would be years and years of special treatment. I could give these power-ups to Lewis and Cole while Pascal slowly puts more time into coaching. He has already had success with the women's team and he'll win the Youth Cup this season."

"Oh! You decided to let him coach the eighteens?"

"Yeah, didn't I tell you? And maybe him coaching is better anyway. He nearly gets his leg broken once a month. I've never seen one player attract so many red card challenges." I sat on a stool but popped straight back up. "Thing is, though, I spent more time thinking about special training courses for Pascal than for anyone. There's a leadership course that I think would help footballers." Pascal's Influence score was 14, so I would only expect to generate a single point of PA by increasing it. "He doesn't even need it for his playing career, but it would help him throughout the rest of his life as a manager. My Soccer Supremo leadership score is high and it does help with all kinds of stuff. Babysitting!"

Emma smiled, warmly. "Your score in a computer game isn't why you're good with Jamie."

"It is! I'm convinced. So why shouldn't we want Pascal to be better at leadership? It's good for Chester if he's winning the Youth Cup for us. Maybe he'll be my assistant manager in the near future. I could see him as manager of Saltney one day, so his success would put millions in my pocket."

"Amazing. Sounds good. Do that."

The best alternative to Influence was Determination. Pascal's was 18, so if my goal was simply to raise his PA, that would be the way to do it. He could go from 138 to 140. "It's an option, sure. But if you start investing in him, you might as well go all in. As well as the leadership course, we could do the sprint training with him. Or work on his stamina." Pascal's Acceleration was 19 and his Pace was 18, so improving either would generate one or two points of PA. His Stamina was 16. Taking it to 17 might only add one point of PA, but it would really help if I wanted him to play for 90 mins in the Prem. "Nah," I said to myself, "stamina's not what he needs. He's going to be an impact player for a couple of seasons whatever happens, so I don't really need him to have mad endurance. Being faster would be amazing, obvs. It's never not useful." And it could take him to PA 142.

From the SILK! set of upgrades, Pascal would benefit most from extra Teamwork, in which he currently had 20, or Technique, where he was 18. Technique would be my preference, but again, taking things beyond 20 generated the most new PA.

"I'd probably pick Technique," I mused, then wrote 'Pascal 144'. I spun my pen around my fingers for a few seconds. "It's possible we could smash him again next season and take him to 150. He would still only be a supersub, but what a supersub he would be! It's just that it would need two seasons of all the squad upgrades going into one player. What about Cole and Lewis? But if I give them even one upgrade, Pascal's out."

"You always say that you can't help everyone but you can help one person a lot. This is that, isn't it? But why don't you just find a way to send players to more courses? They can do them in the summer when you don't have the problem of them being away."

Great idea, but when I had tried to extend God Save the King further, the suggestion box had buzzed and shown the words: FUNCTION NOT AVAILABLE. Being able to boost four male players per year was my limit, and the imps and The Sentinel had set it as a hard limit. They had fucked up before so maybe there was a way for me to scam a loophole, but for now these PA boosts were priceless. "Everything's an option, babes, but asking players to give up their summer holidays to learn balance and agility from the British Olympic trampoline team..."

Emma scraped the last dregs of porridge onto her spoon, ate it, then stared at the 'Dragonball plus one year' list. "Babes... How much would this squad be worth in the transfer market?"

My eyes lit up and I took the paper from her, scribbling numbers by every name. "A 21-year-old left back who scores ten goals a season? 60 mill. Roddy Jones, 19, CA 145? I wouldn't pick up the phone for less than 60." I muttered to myself, put all the numbers into my calculator, and said, "645 million."

Emma dipped her head, raised it, and slow blinked. "Wow."

"That's nothing," I said. "The year after is when it gets really serious. That's when we win the Prem."

She pointed to the paper. "Work it out. Tell me the numbers."

I grinned. "My calculator doesn't go that high."

***

--TACTICAL--

The men's squad did our morning-of-a-match 'activations', showered, and filed into the Sin Bin for the weekly team meeting. There were always a couple of stragglers, so I used the time to smash out a few emails. Gabriel was one of the last to come in, probably because someone had started talking to him and he was weirdly too polite and shy to get out of the conversation. A few weeks back, he had popped in CA with no boost to any Attribute, and that had led me to write to Jacob from Soccer Supremo, asking for a definitive list of all the hidden Attributes in the old version of the game that I used to play.

I clicked on his reply and read the list:

Adaptability, Ambition, Consistency, Corners, Dirtiness, Important Matches, Injury Proneness, Loyalty, Natural Fitness, One-on-Ones, Penalties, Professionalism, Sportsmanship, Temperament, Throw ins, Versatility, Vision.

It was absolutely fascinating, but Jacob had written that by default, those hidden Attributes never changed through a player's career, which explained why the Perk Construction Kit wouldn't let me target them directly.

He also said that a manager's intervention could change them, for example by praising a player in the media. That got me excited until I read the next line. 'Of course, if you use the media to defend a player's recent performances, it can be seen by the rest of the squad as you accepting mediocrity, and it can raise his reputation score, which makes other clubs want to buy him!'

So many variables, so many unintended consequences. What kind of sicko codes all that crap into a game?!

With some of the hidden Attributes, I felt I could get pretty close to guessing the levels of the players I interacted with the most, ones like Corners and Natural Fitness. I mean, could a guy take a good corner? You could see that pretty fast. Set up a throw-in session and see who could hurl it longest. Ditto penalties, and you could design a drill that would reveal 'Vision', which I took to mean the ability to see the locations and vectors of other players. But I would have loved to know a player's Ambition, Consistency, Injury Proneness, and Professionalism before signing them.

For the moment, acquiring that knowledge wasn't on the cards.

"Is everyone here?"

Jimmy said, "Everyone except Murray."

"Murray's not coming," I said.

"He was in training," said Jimmy, confused.

"Yeah because he's on our books until the end of the month, but then he's going back to Everton."

There was a slightly stunned silence; everyone knew I had paid his wages for the entire season. Pascal said, "What did he do wrong?"

"Nothing," I said. Was Murray's Ambition score so high that being at a crap, underperforming club was freaking him out? Was it a case of low Loyalty to me, a manager who had given him a chance? Was Murray simply an example of a low Professionalism score? I doubted that one - he had trained perfectly from start to finish. "I'm not getting what I want from him and I've decided it's better for his career to return to his parent club and either fight for his place or go somewhere he will get minutes. There is no acrimony and there has been no falling-out. I wish him all the best but his future lies elsewhere."

Peter shifted uneasily, looked around him, and said, "I think we need more clarity than that."

"Okay," I said. Peter was around the lads more than I was, and he could intuit the effect of what I had said. If he wanted more info, I wasn't going to overthink it. "There's a danger of this sounding overly negative, which is why I didn't want to get into it, but basically it's simple. Murray doesn't believe in us and what we're doing. He has never said anything like that and he probably never will but I know in my heart that's what he's thinking, deep down.

"And I mean, why should he believe in us? He came in, we plummeted to the bottom of the league and we look like we're going to stay there. Bookies have already paid out on bets that we'll be relegated. His mates are laughing at him. Like I said, I'm not mad about it and don't think badly of him but pretty much everyone else in this room knows we will be fighting right until the end. Last day of the season, a win keeps us up. That's where we're going. What's coming next is one of the all-time great escapes."

Peter said, "What about the version of the story where he doubts us and we win him over and it's even more satisfying to have done it that way?"

I shook my head. "It's a good story but I don't want to read it." I swept my hand around the room. "This is the group that will dig us out of this hole."

Youngster put his hand up. "If you are in a hole, you should stop digging."

"We're so good we can dig upwards." 

Jimmy said, "Does it leave us short on centre backs?"

"No. Peter, Edgar, Dumi, Magnus. Cole can fill in. If needed, I'll play there."

Jimmy said, "Is there anywhere you can't play?"

"Yeah, Glastonbury." I picked up a Post-It note. "Quick bit of planning. It's Ipswich tonight. Saturday it's Notts Forest, Tuesday Leicester, Saturday Newcastle. Four games in twelve days and post-Christmas is busy, too, but to me it's just an amazing opportunity to pick up a bunch of points fast before the rest of the league realises what we're doing. There will be lots of rotation, lots of minutes going round, early subs, all that stuff you love to hate. Foquita's coming soon and he's gonna make a difference but I want to prove that we're good enough to make a go of it on our own. The entire world has been shitting on us since the minute we won the playoff final and now it's time to make them eat their words."

I walked to the tactics board and adjusted it. I reached up to slide one of the magnets, but walked away and made eye contact with Helge, Wibbers, Gabby, and others.

"Ipswich play 4-2-3-1. They're an okay team but you're probably not expecting them to come at us hard and fast. Not exactly a team of hard men, are they? They're technical and they're tactically astute. But I've got bad news. I'm going to wind them up before the match and they're going to be frothing at the mouth by kick off. They will be steaming, they will be piling into every challenge, and their fans will be absolutely demented, baying for blood. So look inside yourself and answer this question: am I ready to go to war?" I stayed still for five seconds. "If you're not feeling it, if you just want a lovely cosy kickabout with your mates, tell me now. I'm not gonna be mad, I swear, but if you start that match and you are not up for it, if you can't match their intensity, I am going to be pissed beyond imagination."

Peter said, "What are you planning?"

"I'm just gonna tell them what I think of them."

"Oh, shit." That got a big laugh, but Peter's question was enormously helpful. Behind the smiles, faces were hardening. The boss is going to do a stunt, things are going to get spicy, here we go again. Where did I leave my game face?

"Good," I said. "That's good. Ipswich are going to start the match at 100%, and we're gonna be at 90. When their levels dip, we're gonna dial up to a hundred and ten percent and we're going to fuck them up. In the break they will switch and I will make a counter-move and the start of the second half will be another onslaught. I'm setting the narrative, I'm setting the emotional temperature, and we're going to ride the waves I create. It's gonna be fucking tasty, lads, but you need to make sure your heads are screwed on because if we lose this one we are really fucked and if we lose it's going to happen in the first ten minutes."

Bark said, "Boss, are you gonna play?"

My eyebrows shot up. "Oh, yeah." For some reason, that got everyone hyped. I went to the tactics board and slid them into a 4-3-2-1 formation. "Christmas Tree. We're gonna welcome our guests with season's beatings. Ah, wow, cut that." I tapped the goalie magnet. "Can't remember who I chose... Sandra?"

"Can't remember, boss. We wrote it down somewhere."

Owen Elmham hated Ipswich Town and if I didn't pick him in this one, he would bulldoze the zen garden. "I've got a sore elbow."

Sandra whipped towards him. "What?"

He grinned. "Got you."

Laughter in the room, and Owen's neighbour, Marek, laughed the loudest. Good. "Owen in goal," I said. "Back four is Helge, Peter, Edgar, and Dumi. The three CMs are Youngster and the Scotsmen." Jimmy and Magnus had both hit CA 150 and were now 'silver' players. In the Prem, gold started at 161; I didn't have any of those yet. I nudged the top three magnets. "Wibbers and me playing behind Gabby." That was a team with CA 151.2, but more importantly, it was pretty much the tallest team I could field. Swap Youngster for another beefy boy and we would rival Arsenal and the other brute force teams for pure height. "Obviously we have sensational threat from set pieces today. The first half will be attritional, we will grind, we will steamroller them." I paused because my starting goalie looked like he was in pain. "Owen?"

"I'm... I'm having a moment."

Marek stood and moved one seat away from Owen. Cue laughter. I said, "Ew. Can you not have sexual ecstasies in front of the staff?"

Owen looked bashful, which was rare for him. "Are we gonna win, though?"

"Nah," I said, stretching. "We're gonna crush."

***

--WELCOMING--

Chesterness Series 6: Charge!

Episode Four: The Implication

EXTERIOR: BUMPERS BANK GYM

Interior: One of the yoga rooms. It's jam-packed with the women's first team squad, Jay Cope, the coaches, and a film crew. Max Best pushes an aerobic stepper into place, and stands on it so that everyone in the room can see him.

MAX

All right? Cool. Thanks for popping in on your day off. I'll try to keep this quick, because I want to get to the Sin Bin to hear what Vikki's saying about Ipswich's set pieces.

Amazing result yesterday. You were so crisp and clean on the ball it was a joy to watch. I know I'm a bit psychotic about always wanting to improve but sometimes it's good to take a breath and say, holy shit, we are mustard.

CHEEKY RABANNE

Is this good? Mustard?

MAX

Of course it's good.

CHEEKY RABANNE

But mint is good also. Which is better, mint or mustard?

MACCA SERRA

Mint is better because of the mint sauce.

CHEEKY RABANNE

Ah, yes, the mint sauce is number one in this country.

MAX

Stop teasing us with your ethnocentric banter or I will make the entire squad watch The Great British Bake Off: Spanish Week again.

[MACCA and CHEEKY fall into each other's arms.]

MACCA

No, no, anything but this!

MAX

Okay, so the purpose of this meeting is to formally announce that IT IS ON! IT IS ON! CHELSEA, WE ARE COMING FOR YOU!

[The players and staff go tonto. Max watches, smiling paternally.]

MAX

Yeah but actually the purpose is to let you know that the rumours are true - Angel is coming back and will be part of the squad for the rest of the season. [Applause.] And Miina Timonen is over and is settling in. [Applause.] I think you're going home for Christmas? [Miina nods.] Yeah, home for Christmas, but she'll be around before and after so please invite her to parties and whatever.

As you can see, there are quite a lot of you. The squad has 28 in total, including Devi and the younger ladies. What it means is there might be some days when the coaches have to be ruthless and not use you in training matches. Devi, Jenni, Taz, Amy, you will get a little less first team involvement and you'll spend more time with the youth teams, but right now this club's all about finishing in the top three. 

I mean, to be clear, this IS a title charge, but top three means Champions League and if getting there costs you a bit of development we will more than make up for it next season when we're handing out minutes left, right, and centre. Does everyone get what I'm saying? Pop your personal ambitions into a Tupperware, get right behind the first team and the staff, let's see how far we can take this thing. Any questions?

[Max half steps away, but there is in fact, a question. He's amazed that it comes from Sophie, one of the co-producers of Chesterness.]

SOPHIE

Is it true you took Angel to Venice?

MAX

Angel, is it true?

ANGEL

If by Venice, you mean some place ten miles inland with not a gondola in sight, yeah.

MAX

My favourite movie is Gondola with the Wind. It's about an Italian woman who is caught up in a civil war and declares she will never go hungry again. In the second act, she invents irrigation.

SOPHIE

Yeah, but Max, don't you think that's weird?

MAX

What, going to a city without really going there? Not really, no. Loads of football stadiums are barely in the cities where the team is supposed to be based. If you ask me if I've been to Brighton I'm gonna say yes.

SOPHIE

Don't you think it's weird to go to Venice with an attractive, single young woman who works for you?

MAX

No. She was in Milan, so it was like going from Chester to York, and I was flying from Venice. It was convenient. The alternative was making her drive herself home in a van.

[Sophie is visibly unhappy with the answer.]

What, Sophie? I don't get what you're trying to do.

ANGEL

She's trying to provoke a dramatic scene for the documentary.

MAX

What's dramatic about any of this?

ANGEL

The part where you climbed a ten-foot fence and interrupted my training session to yell at an Inter Milan legend. Shame we don't have that footage. But Sophie, it's not a story. Max wasn't happy with what he saw in Milan so he canceled the loan and took me home.

SOPHIE

Sure, but you work for him. It's problematic for him to invite you to Venice. Okay, you didn't go to the romantic island part but going to look at sports cars is maybe even worse. Max, I'm worried you don't give any thought to how your female players might feel compelled to do whatever you want because you control their economic futures.

ANGEL

What, because he'll sack me if I say no? You work for him and you're in full terrier mode because you know he wouldn't ever sack you for doing your job!

MAX

Sophie, Angel's contract with Chester is up at the end of the season. She can go to any club in the world and there's nothing I can do about it. I went to London with Kisi and no-one batted an eyelid. What's really going on here? Are you saying Angel is too attractive to have male friends?

SOPHIE

She's not your friend, she's your employee.

MAX

When I see her in a shit training session, she's my employee and I get her out of there. When we're discussing her future, I'm her director of football. When we're waiting for the plane in an airport, I'm her friend, which is why I put up with all the AI slop videos she made me watch on TikTok. I'm compartmental, see? But look, I take your point that it's a situation fraught with peril and it could go south. Okay, everyone, let's clarify one thing. I don't want to break anyone's heart but there is zero chance of me ever cheating on Emma with any of you.

MARI

Even with Kit?

MAX

[Slightly embarrassed laughter.] Yes, sorry.

KIT HODGES

[Mimes her heart being ripped out.]

KISI

What about with [redacted]?

[Widespread laughter.]

MAX

[Very embarrassed laughter.] Sophie, I'm ordering you to edit that name out, even in the raw footage. It's funny, Kisi, but come on.

KISI

Soz.

MAX

No, if it's gonna be anyone, it'll be [redacted]. Oh, shit, I shouldn't have said that. Sophie, bleep that. Bleep that!

KISI

You're so crazy. 

MAX

While we're doing this - this is so weird to me - let me make it really clear that if I ever put any of you in an uncomfortable position, you just have to tell me. Of course I have blind spots and sometimes I think about what I want and go head first at that without thinking of how it might make other people feel. You really just have to tell me. I know that shouldn't be on you to do that but, yeah, I think you know I'm trying to do ten things at once all the time and sometimes I break things on the way. Just tell me. Hey, Angel, do I owe you an apology?

ANGEL

For last week? Not in the slightest.

MAX

For something else that may have come between us in the past?

ANGEL

Opinions may vary.

MAX

Huh. I'm going to end up agreeing with myself on that one, aren't I?

ANGEL

Yup.

MAX

Where was I? Asking you to do things... I'm looking at sending people to train with Olympic athletes and specialists and so on and I pretty much do expect you to agree to those things if you are chosen because that's your job. Making you better players is my job. But if I'm like, hey, let's go to... What's the English version of Venice? Somewhere you'd associate with romance?

Angel: The English version of the place you took me? Hull.

[Laughter.]

Max: Whatever it is, if you don't like it, just say no. It's not going to affect your career. You don't know how many times a day people say no to me. Players, agents, clubs. I'm so used to rejection! Here, watch how chill I am. Kisi, will you come to Venice with me?

Kisi: Yes.

Max: No, I - What? I obviously wanted you to say no.

Kisi: I'm rejecting the offer to say no. I want to go to Venice and now you and I have a verbal contract.

Max: Meghan, I order you to reject me. Will you come to Venice with me?

Meghan: Absolutely. Give me ten minutes to pack.

Max: This is outrageous and unhelpful. [He snaps his fingers.] I've just had a great idea! Win the league, yeah, win the league and everyone in this room can go to Venice. Without me, if Sophie thinks that's better. How about that?

[Murmur of excitement.]

Meghan: You for real?

Max: Billion percent.

Angel: What if we finish second?

Max: I'll book an entire Nando's for you, your mates, your fams.

Angel: Why is second prize better than first?

Max: I mean the REAL Venice! With the canals and masks and shit!

Angel: Yeah, even so...

Miina Timonen: What is Nando's?

[The scene descends into shouty chaos.]

***

--PHILANTHROPIC--

Briggy met me at Bumpers and we snuck into a room to sign some documents. These got me two million pounds of new Temps Perdu shares and took my stake in the company from just over 9% to just under 12. I had nearly eight million sloshing around that I could use to buy more, but I had to be careful to keep enough cash to finance Scott Conrad's rapid expansion of Lit.

We headed to the stadium, and along the way she teased me about how easy it was to manipulate me into buying an expensive car. She claimed to have earned a commission from Ricki, the car maker, but I was 99% sure she was joking.

We went into the Harry McNally, up into the Jejune suite, which Henri's mum had kindly allowed us to turn into the Helen's Goal suite for one match.

Helen was there, looking tired but happy, with loads of her friends and family, who were getting fed and watered for free. Ruud and Jari were special guests, along with Emma and Angel. I only had time for a brief stop, what with me about to star in Monday Night Football. Even as maybe the most unappealing Premier League fixture of the year, it would be watched by more people worldwide than the Superbowl.

I gathered my people around Helen, who was in a sumptuously cosy armchair that could recline if she needed a nap. "Helen," I said.

"Max Best," she said.

"Are you a football fan yet?"

"Only a little bit."

"That's fine. We're making progress, aren't we?"

"I am," she said. "Dad says Chester FC are not."

People laughed. "Is your dad a professional comedian?"

"No."

"It shows. Okay now listen. I invited you to this match because I thought we would win and it would be a good atmosphere and it would be lots of fun." I glanced around at all the people who wished nothing but the best for this little girl. "Er, yeah. So I need to say that I made a mistake."

"You're not going to win?"

I laughed way too hard. "Of course we're going to win, silly poppet. But before the match starts I need to put some baddies on blast and the atmosphere might turn a bit toxic. It's gonna kick off and it could go in any direction."

Helen's dad said, "Er, what's this you're planning?"

"It's all good," I said, talking to Helen. "My wife is here, plus the Chester player who needs the most protection - Angel, there - so I've called up the Max Best Bodyguard All-Stars. You saw Brick outside. Briggy saved me from the baddies in Budapest. I've moved half the Welsh army boys into this stand for tonight. This room is the safest place in Chester right now and that's a promise. But it could be loud and scary, okay?"

"But why?" she said, confused. "It's only football."

"Yeah but I'm gonna tell off a baddie and that's gonna set off a chain reaction. The Mail will come after me again, social media will explode, I'll lose sponsors, and it might even cost me the Wales job."

"Why is he a baddie?"

"I don't know. Bad parents, probably."

"I mean, what makes him bad?"

"Oh. He wants to hurt my friends. But anyway, you can tell that I'm the goodie because I invited you for a nice party and when the waiter asked what everyone wanted to drink your mum said triple gin and tonic so we gave her a glass and left the bottles."

Cue one embarrassed mum, lots of laughter, and several people saying, "Maaaxxx."

"What?" I said, smiling. I dipped into my backpack and pulled out a box. "So anyway, just in case you don't like it, Helen, I've bought you some noise-cancelling earphones. Pop these on and you'll be able to have a kip while everyone outside is losing their tiny minds."

"Kip?" said Jari. "To eat fish?"

Helen said, "Kip means sleep."

"Oh. Thank you, Helen."

"And you can listen to your audiobooks, too. These are called AirPods Max, named after me, and this model has a great sound stage. You don't know what a sound stage is, do you?" She shook her head. "I do but I'm too busy and important to explain it. Okay but what if you want to recline this chair and have a kip but you like to sleep on your side? Headphones too big! What! So I got you some AirPods, too. They're quite comfortable even if you're a side-sleeper."

"Max," said Emma. "What's a sound stage?"

I made a worried face. "It's the, uh, the amount to which you feel like you are enveloped by the audio. Right? Like... you can hear the first violin over to your right."

"Left," said Jari.

"I knew that!" I said, nodding hard. "I knew that!"

Helen smiled and felt the boxes I had placed in her hands. "Thank you. You are very kind."

"Angel will help you connect them to your phone and all that."

"I don't have a phone."

"What the eff? You don't have a phone? Ugh. Okay, take this." I handed over a box containing the latest iPhone with an Apple gift card. "Emma and Angel will help you buy some music. Angel," I said, wagging my finger at her. "Don't download anything you like. Poor Helen has suffered enough."

Angel bit her lip and I noted that she put her hands behind her back, which was the only way she could think to stop flipping me off in front of Helen. "It's customary to consult the parents before giving a child a phone, Max."

"Yeah, well, you can do that. Oh, wait, can I borrow you for a quick second?"

***

--SKULDUGGEROUS--

I took her to the side, but Helen's dad came with. "Max," he said, tearing up. "It's too much. I can't - "

"Whoa whoa whoa," I said, pulling him into a hug. "Look, if it makes you feel any better, I stole all that gear from the Inter Milan changing rooms."

His eyes popped. "What?"

Angel sighed. "He's joking. He says mad things to distract you, and the worst part is, it works."

The dad nodded, slightly confused but smiling, and pottered away. I leaned closer to Angel and was about to talk when Emma appeared. "Private meeting?"

"No," I said, pulling her close. "But don't tell me off. Angel, listen, I genuinely did forget that I had beef with Ipswich when I invited Helen today, but I'm leaning into it. I need you to tell Dylan that it got really scary in here, Helen was scared, even Briggy looked a bit shellshocked. You're gonna tell him that Max is deep in the shit and needs him available to bodyguard and Chester urgently needs a full-time security manager."

About halfway through my speech, she nodded, comprehending me fully. "Right. You're gonna do something stupid and suddenly we're gonna need a lot more security around here. He should quit his job for me, for Emma, for you, for Helen."

"Bosh," I said.

"Oh, babes," said Emma. "This is mental. You don't need to do this."

I eyed her, then suddenly lifted her up and spun her around while she giggled with surprise. "Yeah," I said, before kissing her softly on the lips. "I do."

***

--WATCHFUL--

With me back on the pitch, Chester warmed up. I noted that Ipswich were CA 149, which made them the second PL club who had spent nine digits on new players but hadn't actually improved the starting eleven. To be fair, the bench was way more stacked than when we had played them in the infamous Liza Mason scandal match.

The shell of the PetPride stand was fully up, and while that was exciting in its own right, it also meant that Brooke had been able to give the go-ahead to erect more temporary corner stands. There were two more sets containing 780 fans each, which brought the attendance for tonight to 13,120. Let the records tumble!

And with the new stand in place, with all four corners filled in, this place was primed to get loud. Away fans had a tendency to put Chester in a box labelled 'cute and cuddly', but how about nah? If someone got the home fans fired up and the away end was in the mood, this had the potential to be one of the loudest stadiums in the country.

***

--DIPLOMATIC--

We went through the usual pre-match routines, the usual reminders from Sandra, the usual shout from Peter, the usual lining up in the tunnel. Then I deviated from the script.

Five minutes before kickoff, when DigiWorld was trying to do its usual garbage, the lights in the stadium dimmed, the screens and advertising boards turned black with white text saying 'A MESSAGE FROM MAX BEST'. The Ipswich fans booed that, of course, and I knew that a good 30% of the Chester fans would also hate what I had to say. I couldn't see them, but I knew MD and Brooke would be holding their breath. I hadn't exactly warned them I would be doing this...

I stuck carefully to my script, because my words appeared on the boards while my face filled the big screens. Sophie, miraculously not fired after ambushing me that morning, was in my face with a camera, and for once I didn't mind.

"All right?" I said. That brought a roar from the home fans, more boos from the away end.

I took a few steps away from the main stand and looked to the director's box.

"Ipswich Town is more than a football club. It's a cultural and community hub. It does for Suffolk what Chester FC does for Cheshire. It's important," I said, in little more than a whisper. "It's not to be messed with."

The away fans weren't booing now - they were listening.

I pointed to the box. "Their CEO is here tonight. He's the kind of person who says 'keep politics out of football' but not long ago, he invited a far-right politician from the Regress party to do a lavish photo op at Portman Road." That comment drew huge boos from all around the stadium. I assumed most people were booing the party or the politician, some were booing the memory of the event, some were booing the fact that I had brought it up. "He welcomed a wannabe dictator into the home dressing room, covered it with Ipswich shirts branded with his name, and the politician was photographed signing one of them for the CEO. Then they went for a lovely old lunch together, where no doubt they laughed and joked about machine gunning asylum seekers in the English Channel."

Dead. Fucking. Silence.

"This prick," I said, pointing harder, while the text on the boards showed a slightly more polite word, "then lied about his involvement, even though he personally set the whole thing up. He's a coward. He wants to wreck this county but he doesn't have the courage to look you in the eye and say that. As soon as the heat was on, he turned off his phone. Pathetic."

I took a few steps away from the Main Stand. There was an eerie quiet around the Deva, punctuated by single shouts from drunks and nutjobs.

"I'm gonna tell you my position right now, and I think everyone in this stadium knows that when I say this, I mean it, and I'll stand by it whatever you think and whatever it costs me. The reason Chester FC are in the Premier League right now... is me." That generated quite a lot of applause from the home sections. "But there was a time that this club was sinking to tier seven, the Northern Premier League. Remember that, Chester? That's where you were heading, and that's where you would be without me. But why am I still here? A man attacked me with a metal bar, right there. He gave me a fair old crack around the head. Blood and brains everywhere. Max Best, dead in a ditch.

"But there was a man who witnessed the attack. That man was from Ghana but he wanted to raise his family in England. He was here that day to watch his son play football. He saw the attack and instead of fleeing like a normal person, he ran straight towards danger." I had to stop for a few seconds because there was an enormous, unscripted lump in my throat. I finally swallowed it down. "Mr. Yalley represents the best of British values. Insane courage. Tolerance. A true and steadfast friend, a wonderful neighbour. He is the antithesis of this Regress-supporting CEO, this snivelling worm.

"Regress want to load Mr. Yalley and his family onto a plane and send them home, along with Henri, Peter, and Pascal. Listen to me, you piece of shit, this is their home." Enormous applause from all sides of the stadium. My eyes were blazing, but my voice became softer than ever, laced with menace. "If you want to break into their house and bundle them out in the dead of night..." I pointed at the CEO. "You're gonna have to go through me."

As a good 70% of the stadium rose to their feet, I threw the microphone to someone at the side of the pitch, forgetting the last line of the speech, which was briefly visible on the advertising hoardings. 'I'm gonna enjoy relegating you.'

Those words vanished, and for the entire rest of the match the boards didn't show the names of sponsors, but a slogan I had come up with:

NOT HERE.

NOT EVER.

***

--PLAYER--

1'

My speech had tainted the vibe, made it weird, confusing, sinister, hopeful. Everyone reacted in their own way. Ghouls in the home end got quiet, goblins in the away end frothed at the mouth. Decent people weren't sure what to do, but then the first twenty seconds saw three crunching tackles, two from Ipswich players, and it was game on.

Electric, intense, vital.

Every tackle was a referendum. Every contested header was an opinion poll. Jimmy declared Scottish independence with a neat turn out of the mayhem, pushed the ball into my path, and I went supersonic.

I pushed the ball past a midfielder, accelerated, zigged, zagged, cut onto my right, feinted to shoot, cut back onto my left, fired low and hard from the edge of the penalty area. The goalie got his fingertips to it, pushed it past the post.

I hulked over to the corner flag, took a volley of abuse from the Tractor Boys. I sneered at them, which got the lads in the new corner going. I thought about overloading the goalie and hitting an inswinger but decided to use Masterpiece Theatre to send all my beefy boys to the far post. Tons of the away team went with them, so they were pretty surprised when I dabbed the ball twenty yards to Youngster. He rolled the ball back to me and I hit a vicious cross-cum-shot, left-footed, towards the far post but into the path of Helge and the others.

I struck it too perfectly - it smacked into the very centre of the post.

The rebound caused pandemonium in the penalty area, with stabbed shots, blocks, hacked clearances, a penalty shout for a foul, a penalty shout for handball, and finally, the Ipswich goalie falling onto the ball and the away end breathing a sigh of relief.

***

10'

Ipswich flipped the script, winning more duels than us for a spell, but not threatening much. Our back seven was just too immense, too solid, too well-structured. We had the slight boost for using the Christmas Tree formation, and I triggered Seal It Up so that we would be even more resilient for the next 15 minutes.

I expected a period of frantic effort, and that was what I got.

***

22'

The away team's intensity dipped, so I jogged around telling the guys I wanted more. Even in the midst of the most intense match in a long time, part of my brain was analysing what was happening and what was missing.

I need a perk that lets me switch to Hybridism.

One thing I did have was Cupid's Arrow, which made passes between two specified players more likely to succeed for 15 minutes. There were plenty of options for that one, but I settled on linking me and Wibbers, since our combo was the likeliest to lead to chances.

23'

Great catch from Elmham!

He rolls the ball to Bauer.

The Chester captain evades pressure, is fouled, but stays on his feet.

He gives the ball to Youngster, who scampers forward.

Best runs and demands the ball.

Youngster fires a pass.

Best lets it go between his legs, turns, sprints, and is in position to take the return from Wibbers.

Best instantly gives it to Wibbers.

Wibbers shapes to give it to Best once more...

But the young striker turns on a sixpence, barges past his marker, and approaches the penalty area.

He dinks a pass over the legs of the last defender...

Gabby is under pressure...

But he does amazingly well to shovel the ball into the path of Wibbers.

Wibbers is one-on-one with the keeper.

He shoots...

He scores!

Never in doubt!

The Deva erupts.

Wibbers sprints to the corner flag and does a knee slide. Gabby is not far behind.

Their manager joins the pile-on. 

Their captain joins the pile-on.

Their co-manager joins the pile-on.

A random fan from the stands joins the pile-on.

Chester FC are in the lead!

***

Ipswich were rattled. They hadn't expected such a ferocious atmosphere and had no answer to our formation. They tried going wide. They tried going through the middle. They tried baiting us into pressing higher than we wanted. They tried going long.

We swatted all that bullshit away.

Their players decided to get in my face to try to get me to lash out, to get me sent off.

I backed down and let them walk all over me. Probably? Right? I can't really remember.

***

29'

Crunching tackle from Max Best!

He won the ball, but did he take the man, too?

Ipswich certainly think so. There is a lot of pushing and shoving going on.

Chester are giving as good as they get.

Max Best is giving the Ipswich players a piece of his mind, inviting their captain to see him outside.

Astonishingly, Owen Elmham is acting as the peacemaker!

Both sets of players are fired up, not backing down, and sparks are flying!

***

Our burst of intensity fizzled somewhat, and I had enough cool to recognise that. I switched our mentality to defensive and set Gabby and Wibbers to pressing: no. I took a break myself and mostly walked around, checking Condition scores, looking for weak spots, anticipating where the ball might go next.

By the way, I was loving the new commentary. Nicknames! Yes! So simple, but such a boon. I was gonna tweak the shit out of the curse, while always moving closer to the real goal: eight PA boosts before the end of this season.

Or was Hybridism more important?

I just had to grind to make sure I got everything.

***

38'

After that short lull, the game picked up the pace again. Ipswich played pretty football and moved the ball around, but not well enough or fast enough to disrupt our lines. I quite wanted to release our handbrake and get more attacking, but we were winning, Ipswich didn't look like scoring in the current setup, and we still had our set piece threat.

Youngster was on 9 out of 10, either because the match suited him or because he had been inspired by my comments about his father. He kept getting the ball around our box and driving it well into enemy territory. Normally he would give the ball to a forward and go back to base, but today he was giving the ball to someone and continuing forward, as if I had given him and only him Hybridist instructions.

That was a good idea, I thought. Before asking for the whole module I should ask for the option to set players individually. Or was that functionally the same thing?

I was on my heels when I realised the ball was going to bounce in my direction - even as I moved towards it I realised I was going to get well and truly clattered.

Marco Toni, the ref, blew his whistle but even though I was left in a heap on the floor, groaning from the double impact of the collision and the landing, he kept his yellow card in his pocket. "Fucking refs," I croaked, as I tried to uncurl from the ball I was in.

Marco stepped towards me and said, "Do you need the medic?"

"I need guys who batter me to get booked, mate. I need justice. Crime and punishment, Marco. It's not crime and nothing, know what I mean?"

He smiled. "You're fine. Better to get up or the Regress fans will think you're a big baby and they won't be scared of you."

"Are you rinsing me right now? Is this happening?" A few seconds passed before Peter Bauer stood over me and held his hand out. I grabbed it and let him pull me up. I saw something in his eyes. "You're mad at me for what I did before kick-off."

His expression didn't change. "One billion percent wrong. How can you be so wrong so often and still get so much right? It's puzzling." He eyed the penalty area. "I'm due a goal. Just saying."

"Hmm," I said. He trotted away. I picked the ball up and held its weight. In its roundness, I saw the top of Mr. Yalley's head. In its whiteness, I saw his teeth. In the nozzle, I saw that logic and reason dictated that things should have one tap - or in this case, nozzle. I turned to the director's box and pointed. "This one's for you, shit for brains."

I used the Free Hit perk, made my beefy boys form two lines, then just before I started my kicking motion I made everyone scatter to a position in the other line. Everyone except Helge, who I moved forward. It was a pretty elaborate way to get him the tiniest bit of space, and against some teams it wouldn't have worked.

Against Ipswich, it did.

He rose high and nodded low.

Two-nil.

Two fucking nil.

I sprinted towards the director's box intending to give the Regress moron another blast, but was intercepted by Youngster and Jimmy. They kept me steady until support arrived, and I was gently eased back towards the middle of the pitch, where I had no choice but to celebrate with the lads.

***

--ORATORY--

I sat on a bench wearing a towel around my head, munching on marathon paste, drinking water, watching Ipswich's tactics screens to see how they would respond to our first-half barrage.

They would respond, I was sure of it. They would probably send on some of their beefy boys, so I was planning to pivot to being crazily technical. Cheb, Leo, and Lewis. We would get the ball and keep it. Pass them to death, then slice through their weary lines.

But soft - what's this? Youngster was standing at the front, clearing his throat. "Mr. Best," he said. "Thank you for what you said about my father and my family. I cherish it. I cherish your love for us. But I must say that my father would not approve of your message. We are Christians and we are taught to turn the other cheek. My father would look at this person with whom you have beef... and he would forgive him."

"Yeah?" I said. "Your father can forgive whoever he wants. I'm not in the forgiveness business." I got to my feet. "I'm in the revenge business. I'm in the payback business. I'm in the fucking retribution business!" I stomped around, making eye contact, feeding off the savagery I saw shining back at me. "An eye for an eye! You send one of mine to the hospital, I send one of yours to the morgue! I'm drawing a line in the sand that those fucks will never cross. Not here, not ever. Not here, not ever!"

I went to Youngster and got close, so close we were almost eyeball-to-eyeball.

"Mr. Yalley is the closest thing I have in this world to a father. You are my brother. But there's nothing either of you can say that can stop me from doing this." I stretched my fingers out and curled them inwards, grasping at nothing and everything as I hissed, "I'm angry, mate, and Ipswich are gonna get it. Their relegation starts now. They can go back to their little crevice and invite every fascist for miles around, but when they come back up to the Prem I'm gonna stomp them back harder and harder. Five-nil, seven-nil, ten-nil. They are enemy number one and they're gonna get it and get it until they sack that prick."

To my right, there was laughter, and for just a moment I was so angry I could have fired lightning from my fingertips, but it was only Marek laughing at Owen Elmham, driven to ecstasy once more. He shook his head. "I'm sorry, boss. I'm with you. You know I'm with you, but that was..." He sighed. "That was spiritual. Youngster, shut your fucking mouth with this forgiveness crap and I'll help at the food bank, all right?"

Youngster grinned. "I knew some good would come of this. God moves in mysterious ways."

"Yeah," I said, nudging him back to his spot on the benches. "But Ipswich move in fucking predictable ways. Sandra, they're beefing up."

Her eyebrows rose. "You sure?"

"Sure."

She shook her head and scoffed. "Just so everyone knows, Max predicted this about three weeks ago." She rubbed her chin, stared at nothing, then snapped out of it. "Leo, Cheb, Lewis, get ready. Rushy and Pascal, you're up for 20-minute cameos. Is anyone not feeling it? Too intense? Want to tap out?"

Leo stood and said, "I want to play, but not as much as I want to meet Mr. Yalley."

Youngster said, "You can, tomorrow, at the food bank. Would you like to volunteer?"

I threw my hands up. "Holy shit, the kid is relentless." I went to the tactics board and tapped the Christmas Tree formation. "We will stay like this, but I'll move around more, be more of a link player. I don't want Ipswich getting a touch of the ball. I want 90% possession. I want fucking perfection this half, men. Perfection!"

***

--POWERLESS--

It wasn't perfect. It wasn't even exceptional.

It was merely outstanding.

For 20 minutes, we taunted them, zipped the ball around, bypassed their beefy boys with ease, made their lines buckle, drew fouls, smacked free kicks into the danger area. We came close, racked up the expected goals, but couldn't get the ball over the line.

We were so in control that the mood in the crowd shifted from backing us to revelling in our skill. When we completed a pass, they chanted olé! When Ipswich completed a pass, there were ironic, mocking jeers.

The vibe spread to our players; complacency set in. We took too long on the ball, were late to tackles, gave away stupid free kicks. The wind spilled from our sails, all because we were two goals up and the crowd were in party mode. 

This wasn't the fucking story I had mapped out and I ran around yelling at the guys, getting in their grilles, shaking them, telling them to snap the fuck out of it. It didn't work.

Ipswich strung five passes together, then ten. I moved us into a low block, screaming bloody murder in my wastrel players' faces at every break in play.

The Christmas Tree wasn't doing it, so I went to 5-4-1 with me as one of the back line. I headed the ball away twice, made an interception, shepherded the ball out of play. The clock was ticking towards 90.

The next cross came in over my head, was met with a thunderous half-volley, but Owen tipped the shot over the bar. He was just as pissed as I was.

***

--COILED--

72'

Sandra Lane is making some changes.

Off go Wibbers and Gabby. Onto the pitch jog Pascal Bochum and Matt Rush.

Pascal called out that Sandra wanted a counter-attacking 4-3-3 with me joining the subs in the front line, Youngster, Magnus, and Leo as the central midfield three. That seemed decent, with Rushy able to drop back and help Cheb on the right, and either Pascal or me doing the same with Lewis on the left. Basically 4-5-1 in defence, a wide 4-3-3 on transitions.

I made the changes on the tactics screen, and only had to decide if I wanted to take the central position or let Pascal play as a false 9. I chose the latter.

74'

Ipswich probe down their left. Cheb almost intercepts, but the away team regain possession.

Rushy is back to help. The Chester duo force Ipswich to look elsewhere.

They try a pass through the middle. Beautiful idea, perfect execution!

Ipswich will have a great chance...

Sensational sliding challenge by Edgar Wilde! He had to get that right or it would have been a penalty and more!

The ball pops to Cheb, who first-times it to Rushy.

Rushy to Wilde. Wilde sprays it left to Lamarre.

Lamarre is closed down and forced onto his weaker right foot. He plays it to Magnus.

The Scot backheels it first time!

Leo Los is in space. He surges forward. The home fans rise from their seats!

Pascal runs across the two centre backs.

Los finds Best, whose first touch takes him past the Ipswich right back.

Best is surging towards goal. He'll shoot from the edge of the box with his right...

He chops back onto his left, drives into the box, flicks the ball to Pascal and goes for the return pass.

Best is screaming for the ball!

Pascal... backheels it.

Into the path of Rushy! He's wide open!

He shoots first time.

GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!

Beautiful play from Chester. They extend their lead to three, and surely the three points are in the bag!

***

--BROODING--

While the guys sprinted to the McNally and revelled in the utter bone-shaking mayhem, and while Owen Elmham did somersaults in front of the away fans, I walked towards Sandra, glowering, pissed off. Our mentality had completely collapsed in the second half and we were lucky to have gotten away with it.

Lucky?

I turned to my left, watched as the party continued.

Matt Rush had been in a defensive role, helping Cheb, and when Magnus had done his astonishing, line-breaking backheel, Rushy had started his sprint. How many players - even in the Prem - could make that sprint and still have the composure to pick the right finish at the end of it? Not a huge number, but we had two on the bench: Rushy and Roddy. There was nothing lucky about that.

But the real difference-maker had been Pascal. He had made moves to create space, then when the aggro wasn't on him, he had zipped back into the danger area. When the ball came to his feet, his demanding, moody arsehole boss had been in a great position to score and was screaming for the ball, but Pascal had seen the defenders who might have blocked my shot, and had noted that the keeper had moved to my side of the goal. So Pascal had taken the cold-blooded decision, the ruthless decision, to do what was best for the team, not best for his career.

The irony being, of course, that it was fucking stellar for his career. Where better to invest PA boosts than in creating an on-pitch general, a second megabrain? Make your own luck. Invest in players who can make a difference.

Sandra was grinning from ear to ear, but was ready to hear what I had to say. "All good, boss?"

"No, I'm incandescent."

"I would never have guessed. Do you want to hear a secret?"

"What?"

She beckoned me closer, cupped my ear, and said, "Duh-duh. Duh-DUH-du-du-duh."

I leaned back, eyes comically wide, wondering if she had lost her marbles. "You kay, cuz?"

She flapped her hands to make me return, cupped my ear, and repeated what she had said, but halfway through I realised she was doing the theme from The Great Escape. She finished by chanting, "Ches-ter!", then stepped back and simply grinned.

I stood with my hands on my hips, trying to slip back into my state of annoyance, my state of indignation. "Fuck me," I said, breaking out in a wide smile, as I turned away and trudged back onto the pitch. "Can't even have a good sulk these days."

***

--WATCHFUL--

The goal snapped us out of that weird little funk and we were back to playing quickly, positively, pro-actively. We were present in every duel and when we lost them, someone else was backing up.

Leo Los's rating touched 8 out of 10, which coming after a 7 in the last match showed that he was trending upwards. Rushy enjoyed the freedom of playing as a wide attacker, Pascal was mint, Owen Elmham dominated his penalty area without ever looking like he would have a meltdown.

As we got into the final ten minutes and the win seemed ever more certain, something strange happened: Peter Bauer started to play Hybridism.

He would get the ball, play a pass, then sprint into midfield, demand the return, play another pass, then move yet further forward.

It was fascinating to watch, partly because he was the only one doing it. I wanted to ask what the hell he was playing at, but I noted that when Peter ran ahead, either Lewis or Cheb would tuck in to the back line and either Youngster or Magnus would drop into the rest defence. That was also fascinating, because I wasn't sure if Peter had told those guys to do it or if it simply felt right to them.

Leo clipped a pass for Rushy to chase, which he played for Pascal. A defender got there first and the chance was lost, but I saw that Peter had burst into the penalty area.

He was trying to get on the scoresheet!

Was it bugging him that he hadn't scored in the Prem yet? Normally him going rogue would have pissed me off, but sometimes you have to let your players get things off their chest, and this was a little sneak peak of what Hybridism could look and feel like.

"Let's get you a goal, pal."

***

--COLLEGIATE--

86'

Best to take the corner.

He holds up his hand and there's a surge of players towards the near post.

Best pings it long to the edge of the box. What is Peter Bauer doing there?

Bauer on the volley...

He crashes it just over the bar!

He sinks to his knees.

That would have been a contender for Goal of the Season!

Thunderous applause from the home fans.

87'

Bauer to Youngster. 

Leo Los takes over. He feeds Best, who touches it square to Bauer.

Best rushes forward. Bauer finds the run, then sprints onwards.

Best clips to Bauer, cuts inside, runs ahead diagonally.

Bauer yet again to Best!

But Best lets the ball run. He wipes out two defenders without even touching the ball!

Pascal to Rushy.

Rushy skids the ball low across the six-yard box.

Bauer to apply the simple finish...

But he can't get there! He stretched, threw out his boot, but missed by a whisker!

Yet another standing ovation from the Chester fans.

Their team has given them a treat today.

88'

Ipswich are looking dangerous. They create an overload on their left wing.

Rushy helps Cheb.

Evergreen rushes to negate the overload. The winger is out of options - he will cross.

It's deflected and the ball is comfortably picked up by Elmham.

He hurls it wide left to Best.

Best waits for Lamarre to overlap.

Lamarre backheels the ball to Best, who sweeps it all the way across the pitch to Rushy.

He tears up the ground - 20 yards in two seconds.

Rushy to Pascal.

Pascal to Los.

Los to Bauer, who is steaming ahead.

Bauer to Best to Pascal.

Pascal dribbles left, then plays a sensational through-ball to Best.

Best is in line with the near post. He has Peter Bauer unmarked to his left!

Best shapes to pass - the goalkeeper dives to intercept...

Best nudges the ball ahead and thrashes it into the net!

He wheels away and launches himself into the Harry McNally terrace.

There are limbs everywhere! The noise is incredible!

***

--APOLOGETIC--

"Mate," I said, grabbing Peter, as the lads peeled themselves off the fans and stumbled drunkenly back towards our half. "Soz, I had to! I had to!"

"Had to what?" he said.

"Had to shoot. I really wanted you to get your goal."

"My goal?" he said, confused. "I was trying to set you up! For Helen. Helen's Goal."

"Right!" I said, detaching from him so I could turn back towards the McNally. Up in the Jejune box, I couldn't see Helen but I saw a shock of blonde hair next to a gigantic, hulking brute who was applauding me over his head. If Emma and Brick were there, maybe Helen would be close. I blew a thousand kisses to that general area; they could distribute them as they saw fit.

***

--SPORTING--

The ref blew his whistle, drawing the curtain on a spectacular win. A statement win. Tough defence, quality on the ball, moments where we cut through a Premier League team like a hot knife through a cloud.

The Live Table had us on 8 points, now only 8 behind Ipswich themselves. Notts Forest would be hard, Leicester would be another match like this, and then I was going to use Bench Boost against Newcastle. We were accelerating...

I went to Ipswich's striker. The curse rated his performance as 5 out of 10, which was fair but harsh. "Mate," I said, touching his back. "They didn't give any service but you kept running. Good job."

"Er, thanks," he said, but I was already moving to the next guy. 8 out of 10 in a game you lose four-nil? That's a proper player. Then onto the captain, who had kept his troops in order throughout. Yeah, there was some good stuff there, some quality. Not enough to make me doubt we would thrash them in the return match. Also none of them were Welsh and all of them worked for a fascist, but hey, can't have everything.

***

--REGAL--

I walked towards the McNally, noting that the director's box seats were empty apart from Secretary Joe. Ipswich's CEO had probably scuttled back into whatever crack in the ground he called home, while MD and Brooke would be on the phone to sponsors and the FA, putting out the fire I had started. Clusters of fans had gone to the front of the Main Stand hoping for selfies or autographs; I waved at them. The front of the McNally was teeming with life, too.

I posed for a couple of selfies, shook a few hands, but there was one big ugly guy, a Regress voter if I ever saw one, who kept yelling at me. "Max! Max!" The way I felt, I could have battered fifty fascists, so I moved in his direction. He was waving his phone around, wanting to show me something.

When I got there, he held it still, but my brain couldn't process the image. He was showing me an online shop: product, price, details, swipe to see more images. "What's this?"

"A t-shirt!" he said. "I just bought it !"

"The fuck," I said, taking his phone so I could look properly. It was a white t-shirt, XXXL, with a black square on the front with the words: NOT HERE. NOT EVER. "What!" I said, smiling. I scrolled to see when that shirt had been uploaded to the store. The answer was: about an hour ago. Someone had watched the match and thought, that's gonna sell. "Come here," I said. I signalled to the stewards to let the guy through the gate. Bewildered, he came down, pitchside, and I took him by the arm, leading him round the corner flag.

"Where are we going?" he said.

"Dressing room. I need someone to drink my share of the booze. Everyone's share of the booze, to be honest." I stopped suddenly and eyed him. "You know how to party, don't you?"

He couldn't believe it. He was just a fan - he didn't get to leave his box and come into the inner sanctum with the players - but as we got closer and closer, he realised I wasn't joking. "This is really happening..."

"You better fucking believe it." I clicked my neck left and right, thinking about the fight I had just started and the battles yet to come. "You and me, mate, you and me. We'll do it together."

...

Thanks for your support!

Thanks to urland for being this week's perk imp. Thanks to zipperco for suggesting the word 'skulduggerous.'

The weather is VERY tolerable now (and we installed a shutter on the roof window that gets the most sun, so we're hopeful that helps to stop us getting cooked). I want to get back on schedule but I just got the finished audiobook files and need to check them (so that's 22 hours!) and I have to go to a big family event. That's next Saturday and I won't be able to write a word.

So I'm not totally sure about the schedule. If it's poss to do the next chapter by Tuesday, I will.