I sat in the hotel room for a while after that. The pasta on the room service tray had gone cold. I wasn't hungry anyway. I thought about Connor Wickham at twenty-four, trying to process the gap between what he had expected and what had actually happened.
I thought about how much of this job was about managing that gap, in yourself and in other people. Then I opened my notebook and moved on, because that was the only thing you could do.
By Wednesday, Sky Sports News was running a rolling ticker that seemed to update every hour. PALACE IN MASSIVE CLEAR-OUT. WICKHAM TO SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY FOR £6M. PUNCHEON DROPS TO CHAMPIONSHIP. LEE CHUNG-YONG TO FC SEOUL FOR £3M.
The BBC ran a piece titled Crystal Palace's Summer Revolution: Ruthless Rebuild or Reckless Gamble? The Telegraph called it Danny's Demolition Derby. The Mirror went with The Boy With The Axe.
