Harry Leonard and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Max Dean has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Max Dean. 1‑0 against Burton Albion, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Pemi Aderoju. 1‑0 against Blackpool, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Max Dean was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.05. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Kyrell Lisbie and Peterborough United agree another 4 years.
Davy Roef and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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.
Club Brugge next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and KAA Gent will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Nobody at KAA Gent will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Peterborough United have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
7.98, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brandon Khela 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at KAA Gent this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Matties Volckaert is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Matties Volckaert trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Tom Vandenberghe has written the date down.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at KAA Gent the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Matthew Garbett and Peterborough United agree another 3 years.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Peterborough United has been clear about where Carl Johnston stands, which is more than many ever get.
Mark Gillespie is 34 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Sam Hughes is on it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Peterborough United that is a harder question to answer.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Tom Lees has written the date down.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Juvenal Cardozo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Max Dean was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 87. Stockport County had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rio Adébísí 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Max Dean has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Peterborough United can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 9 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Peterborough United until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Peterborough United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Peterborough United asked and Wrexham said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Peterborough United ran out of time with Sunderland. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Josh Feeney is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
A loan enquiry to Sheffield United: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The clubs have shaken hands with Sunderland; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Peterborough United can pretend not to have heard.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $4.1M — a club that wants Cam Bragg enough to be asked twice.
Peterborough United asked and Sheffield United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 7.16, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 92. Cardiff City had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
2‑6 to Leyton Orient, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at AZ is saying, and nobody at Peterborough United is enjoying the guessing.
Peterborough United have gone to Sunderland with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.93, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Peterborough United and Leyton Orient, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
$210.0K was the most the club would pay and Sheffield Wednesday were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The offer went to VfB Stuttgart this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Adnan Januzaj is living that version at KAA Gent, and it tends to show in the first month.
The offer from Dukla Prague for Max Dean was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at KAA Gent can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at KAA Gent this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Waasland-Beveren left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at KAA Gent training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maksim Paskotši 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.
Harry Leonard 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Peterborough United will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
AZ have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Rio Adébísí 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.