After the match, I did something unusual. I went out.
Not with the squad. Not with Emma, who was at home editing her podcast and her work. I went to a restaurant in Dulwich that I liked because it was quiet and the owner didn't care about football and the pasta was good and nobody bothered me. I needed an hour of silence.
The schedule was relentless. United today. Atlético on Thursday. Three days. The machine didn't stop and sometimes the man inside the machine needed to sit in a restaurant and eat pasta and not think about Griezmann's movement for forty-five minutes.
I was halfway through the carbonara when the voice came from behind me.
"Danny Walsh. Eating alone on a Monday night."
I turned. The agent. Sánchez's agent. The same man who had sat across from me at the restaurant in Mayfair in January, the one with the bruschetta and the pitch and the carefully constructed argument for why Alexis Sánchez should sign for Crystal Palace.
