"You should make an offer to Bolton regarding Campo while in the meantime I'm going to London to sign Morais," John said to Michael.
"All right," Michael said.
John left Michael's office immediately. He asked Sean to arrange a meeting with Morais agent on the next day as they had no time to lose.
'I need to hire a secretary for this stuff.' John thought after he went to his office.
'I'll do it after the season starts,' John thought.
'I should call Amy, it's been quite a while since we talked.' John thought and he took out his phone.
It was a Nokia E61 with QWERTY keypad.
"How long do I have to use this shitty phone. When will the iPhone come out?" John thought out aloud.
It wasn't long. Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone on June 29th, 2007, so it was just two weeks until it's launch.
Ring....Ring....Ring....
'What should I talk about?' John thought while the bell was ringing.
John had been so busy ever since he took over Leicester that he didn't have much time to go out and meet people. Amanda was his only connection to a life outside the club.
There were lots of friends of 'John' from before the accident, but no one was very close to him. So, it wasn't very awkward when he broke his previous relationships after accident and came to Leicester from London.
"Hello, John, how are you doing?" came the voice from the other side of the phone.
"I'm fine, you?" John said.
"I'm doing okay too, it's been hectic recently at work so I haven't been able to call you," Amanda said in a coddling tone.
"That's fine, Amy, you don't have to call me every week, you know. I can take care of myself." John said.
"Yeah, do you have someone else you can talk to?" Amanda asked.
"Well, yeah," John said, almost embarassed.
"Who?" Amanda asked.
"We don't need to go into details, now do we?" John said.
"Yeah, yeah, we don't. But do call me if I'm not able to," Amanda said.
"All right," John replied, "Actually, I was coming to London tomorrow, so if you have some time, we could meet."
"I'll make some time. Why don't you come to home tomorrow so that we could have dinner together?" Amanda said.
"OK" John replied.
They talked some more before cutting the call. John opened his computer to book flight tickets for tomorrow.
****************************
John got out of his apartment and called Jim for the cab.
"To the club, Mr. Baker?" Jim asked as he stopped the cab and John got on.
Jim had been driving John around Leicester since he was here. John didn't go out much so he only drove him to the club and from club to home.
"No, not today, Jim. Take me to the airport," John said.
"All right, Mr. Baker" Jim said.
John sat on the backseat and took out the newspaper. John had developed a habit of reading the sports news while in the cab.
'Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra close to completing his Manchester City takeover,' the headline on the newspaper read.
John remembered the Thai takeover of Man City. The Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, after being dismissed as prime minister of Thailand, in an attempt to improve his image bought Man City for approx. 80 million pounds.
He had attempted previously and failed, but this time succeeded in purchasing the Premier League side. He later used his brief time as an owner of Man City to seek asylum in UK after being convicted in Thailand for corruption during his time as Prime Minister.
"We're here, Mr. Baker" Jim said.
"Thank you, Jim" John said as he got off.
John reached London at noon. He went straight to the place he was meeting Nuno Morais and his agent to sign him.
"Mr. Baker, to be honest with you, Morais wants game time more than anything else. He has been sitting on the bench at Chelsea for a long time," His agent said, "He has already been approached by APOEL in Cyprus and he has been offered the starting position. Although I understand that playing in England is beneficial to him, but sitting on the bench isn't going to help him."
Morais had a bad stint at Chelsea. During his three years there, he spent two full seasons at Chelsea and played only 4 games. It wasn't anyone's fault because ahead him were players like Claude Makelele and Lampard. Morais was a good player but he wasn't at that level.
To give him some playing time and game experience, Chelsea loaned him to C.S. Maritimo playing in the Portuguese League for 2005-06 season. He played 17 games there, but after returning to Chelsea, he only got 20 minutes of playing time with Chelsea.
Due to that, his developement had stalled and he was naturally wary of where he was going next.
"I understand, but we don't want him to sit on the bench. I am here because we think he is going to help us. I can't guarantee a starting spot to him, that's up to the coach to decide," John said.
That was his bottom line. They had been negotiating for a long time, but Morais wanted a guarantee that he would get a starting position, but John wasn't willing to concede on this one point.
"But I can assure you that we will put him in the best position to succeed and he will get plenty of game time in the coming season," John tried to convince them one more time.
"We are very grateful for this opportunity, but I don't think we can come to an agreement, Mr. Baker," Morais' agent said.
"That's okay," John replied.
John left the place while feeling slightly disappointed. While this wasn't the first time he failed to convince a player to sign for Leicester and it certainly wasn't last, it still felt bad.
'