The text message from Freedman arrived at seven in the morning, just as I was finishing my first coffee of the day. It was a single sentence: He's here.
I put the mug down and looked out the window of my office at the training pitches below. The morning was grey and damp, the kind of South London morning that makes Singapore feel like a dream.
The first team was already beginning to filter out, a loose procession of players in training gear, boots clicking on the concrete path.
I watched Zaha jog out with his hood up, Neves walking beside him in silence, Chilwell doing a few high-knee strides to wake his legs up. The season was six days away from beginning in earnest. There was no time to ease into anything.
I left my coffee and went downstairs.
Lucas Digne arrived at Beckenham an hour later, not with the fanfare of a new signing, but with the quiet, understated professionalism of a man reporting for his first day at a new office.
