Marked for Michael Morrison
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cambridge United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gassan Ahadme, and the manager let it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market17 Aug 2026
Luton Town come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Cambridge United did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Shayne Lavery falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match15 Aug 2026
Milton Keynes Dons left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Cambridge United turn down the training-ground plan
It is the quietest way a club tells you what its ambitions are. The money was asked for, the money was refused, and the people who work there every day now know exactly where they stand.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dominic Ball and Cambridge United agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Dominic Ball was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Cambridge United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Shayne Lavery is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Market3 Aug 2026
36 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Market3 Aug 2026
No place for Ben Knight in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ben Knight has his answer from Cambridge United; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.