[Away dressing room. The Hawthorns. 17:42 GMT.]

Dougie shut the door behind him with his foot. Two paper cups in one hand and the analyst tablet in the other. He set the cups down on the bench between us.

"Pulis still makes the best away coffee in the league. The man cannot pick a striker but he can run a kettle."

"Cheers."

I drank some. He was right.

"Right."

"Right."

"Barcelona want Lucas back. Their fella rang Steve at half time. The loan ends in May and they’re not extending. There’s no fight in it. Lucas goes home in June."

"He played well today."

"He played ninety minutes and won the corner Dann scored from. Doesn’t matter. Madrid let Carlo Ancelotti go and that didn’t matter either. Lucas goes home in June."

"He doesn’t know."

"He doesn’t. May. Not before. He plays both Salzburgs and the cup semi. We do not turn a man into a lame duck in April."

"All right."

He took a drink. Set the cup down. Turned the tablet on. Two faces on the home screen, both of which I knew.

"Marcus has a list. Five positions. I want to walk you through it. The left-back is the only one you decide Tuesday. The rest is for knowing."

"Show me."

He tapped the face on the left.

"Hakimi. Nineteen. Castilla. Right-back the way you and I are right-footed. Played the left for Morocco in November because the starting left-back broke a foot in the warm-up. Played forty-five minutes. The senior coach told Marcus over a meal afterwards in Casablanca that those were the best left-back minutes he’d seen in five years from a Moroccan."

"From the boy."

"From the boy. Marcus has watched him eight times. He plays the left like a right-back who has been told he is now playing the left. Which is what he is. The delivery from the left is six inches off. The timing on the overlap is half a beat slow. He’ll work on it. In two years, he will be a two-footed full-back at Champions League level. He gives you both sides."

"Why."

"Because Aaron will get a four-week injury one January. When he does, you will not want Joel Ward as your only senior right-back. With Hakimi on the books you slide him over and the team is still the team. He’s a hedge. He’s the rare lad who hedges two problems at once."

"And forward."

"Marcus says he is the most attacking full-back he has watched in three years. Goes past people, crosses on the run, scores tap-ins because he gets in the box. From either side. The cross from the right is automatic. The cross from the left is six inches off."

He tapped the second face.

"Theo. Twenty. Real Madrid. Marseille kid. Brother is at Atlético. Marcus went to Marseille and sat down with the academy bloke who had him from seven to fifteen. The academy bloke said he has only ever coached one boy who knew with the certainty of mathematics where he was meant to be at every moment, and that boy is Theo, and Theo is a left-back, and Theo has been a left-back since he was nine."

"He can’t play the right."

"Cannot play the right. Zidane tried him there in pre-season last August because Madrid were thin on the right. He spent the first half looking at his feet. He got moved back in the second. He hasn’t played a minute on the right since. The two managers before Zidane tried him there as well. Same story. He is a left-back. He is the kind of left-back Madrid are sitting on until he can take Marcelo’s shirt. He is two years from being the best in Europe."

"You’ve said that about three lads this year."

"I’ve said it about one. Don’t be cute, Daniel."

I laughed.

"What’s the difference between them."

"Hakimi gives you two sides for four years. Theo gives you one side for ten. Sarah wants Hakimi. I want Theo. Marcus wrote left-back, left-back only twice on Theo’s report because he meant it. You get to decide."

"And forward."

"Both elite. Don’t even grade them against each other on attack. Hakimi scores tap-ins because he’s in the box. Theo scores from outside it because he hits a ball like a striker. Neither of them is a defensive full-back. If you want defensive full-backs you have Aaron, you have Joel, you have a fit Ben in the cupboard. This is an attacking signing whoever it is."

I sat with it for a minute.

"All right."

"That’s the left-back."

"What’s the rest."

He swiped the tablet.

"Right-back depth."

"Aaron starts."

"Aaron starts. Aaron is twenty and he is your starter for ten years if his knees hold. We do not buy a right-back to start. We buy a right-back to play twenty-five matches in cups and Europa and to be on the bench every Saturday. Joel is twenty-eight and a man we owe a career to. Joel did not start a Premier League match between Christmas and February. We need a younger Joel."

"Names."

"Two on the list. A Dutch lad at Twente, a German lad at Mainz. Marcus is in Holland the second week of April and Germany the third. Proper reports before the window opens."

"Centre-half."

He looked at me.

"Konaté is nineteen. Came in last August. The best young centre-half in Europe and we have a Madrid enquiry, a Bayern enquiry and a Juventus enquiry in the file since January. Steve has said no to all three. They will come back."

"We keep him."

"We keep him. As long as he wants to be kept. He is the project. He is not for sale next summer. He is not for sale the summer after that. He is the lad we are building this back four around for ten years."

"Then why a centre-half."

"Mama."

I waited.

"Mama is twenty-eight and he is the captain of the back four when he plays and he does not play every match. He missed the Wednesday at Lazio. He missed four weeks before the Carabao Cup final. Mama is brilliant. Mama is not ninety minutes every three days. We need a centre-half who can partner Konaté on a Wednesday in Salzburg without us losing two yards of pace and three goal kicks."

"Not to replace Mama."

"Not to replace Mama. To carry Mama. To let him sit out the Wednesdays so he is fresh for the Saturdays. To let Konaté have a proper partner when Mama has a hamstring."

"Tomkins."

"Tomkins is brilliant for what he does. He is the centre-half you bring on in the seventy-fifth minute with a one-nil lead. He is not the man you start at Anfield in October."

"Dann."

"Dann is the captain and Dann plays the cups."

"All right."

"Twenty-three, twenty-four, plays in a top-four Ligue 1 side now and would play for us now. Marcus has a name. I’m not saying it today. Tuesday."

"Goalkeeper?"

***

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