Mon Sep 14, 2026 8:42 am
Cardiff City Managers Office. The phone rings.
Faithful Lee 'Blimey' O'Rielly picks up.
A puzzled Lee looks rather confused. He didn't come to South Wales to get involved in complicated things like thinking. In fact, he still lives in Manchester - so he can continue to observe The One True Pep. To see how he eats his tapas to see how he parks his car (slightly to the left of the bay, so you pin the other driver into a tight spot, but you have all the space to exploit on your right wing) to see how he takes his Siesta. No detail is too small to be ignored and misinterpreted. But The One True Pep has now gone and Lee is having to focus on the football. It’s not his strength.
His strength is backing up the New Pep. He dreams of being the No. 2 to the New Pep as they climb to Champions League glory. A kind of Mick Arteta to BBM's New Pep, if you will.
For now, his main job is looking after BBM’s back. Any dissenters who show resistance will be purged.
Any backroom boys who offer a view will go. It’s up to 5 already, which is 1 more than the points we have. You can’t argue with the statistics.
Lee; 'Pep, I've got Security at The Vale on the phone. They say there are 4 Royal Canadian Mounted Policemen at the gate and want to know where they can bed down the horses before the meeting at 2pm.'
BBM; 'Lee, stop calling me that. I'm my own man. I don't just do everything Pep does.'
BBM finishes shaving his head.
'They are part of the new beefed up recruitment strategy for the January Window. It's something Vincent and I talked about in Malaysia. He seemed pretty impressed by my research. Go and tell Patrick 'Paddy' Deboys he's back on car parking duties. And tell Security they can put the horses in any penalty area on the training pitches. We don’t use them.
Lee;’ Pep, you have another masterplan in the making? I'm excited.'
BBM; 'Statistical analysis by the Canadian Govt has revealed that by using The Mounties, we can increase the chances of getting our man by 100% over the next 4 week window.
Lee; 'Wow, that means we'll be up to an 8.42% chance of signing someone. That's not a marginal gain to be ignored. Assuming we can persuade someone who doesn't already know us to come here.'
'But what about the 17 games until the window?’
BBM; 'We’ve done everything possible there. Those games will take care of themselves. The plan is in place – we can’t afford the disruption any changes now would cause. It would knock the players off their stride. The 0.5714285 points per game we are currently securing will continue to rack up all the way to January.'
‘I'm on to the next level Lee. Indulge me. I’m imagining a game where the bench is made up entirely of goalkeepers and 15 year olds.
'It fills me with joy. It’s so far outside of the box as to almost be an hallucination. Much like our finishing.’
‘Only a madman would bring on two goalkeeper subs when the opposition only have 3 shots. Only a lunatic would bring on a 15 yr whose kit is still VAT free.’
(An email pings in from an IP address in Leeds ‘They score from 2 of those 3 shots’)
‘If the bench is unusable, I cannot make any subs and therefore things WILL NOT CHANGE!’
Lee; ‘It’s genius, Pep’
BBM;’ Obviously the opposition won’t know we aren’t going to bring anyone on, but what we lose there is minimised by the benefits gained. Our players know there is zero risk of being subbed off and can therefore play the risk free option in every situation. It’s the ultimate freedom every player dreams of. The free agents will be flocking to us at the end of January. Nothing will change my mind on that.
Lee; 'Yeah, about that. People are beginning to notice your reluctance to change your mind or try something different in any given situation.'
BBM; ‘Exactly, every week people expect me to sign new players, or a new goal keeper coach, or new academy coaches, or make substitutions, or change tactics or change formations. I stay ahead of the curve by changing nothing week in, week out. Season in, season out. The same players doing the same things. The stats say we get better and better at repeating those mistakes every week. Always do what the opposition least expect. Therefore change nothing - it keeps them on their toes and we have the familiarity of knowing exactly what mistakes we are going to make well in advance.
Lee; 'What’s Ken Choo doing here? He doesn’t look happy’
BBM; ‘Ah, I might have put a ding in one of his showroom cars when I parked up this morning. I got a bit too tight there and boxed myself in a bit.
Lee; ‘Blimey’