The words a physio says slowly. 25 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Plymouth Argyle they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Evangelos Andreou 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Plymouth Argyle told Thiago Romero something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Will Dickson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Plymouth Argyle lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Mattia Tordini has his answer from Plymouth Argyle; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Plymouth Argyle are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Brando Moruzzi signs something — a contract at Plymouth Argyle or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 60 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Two goals and a mark of 8.83 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Plymouth Argyle is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Abdoulie Manneh 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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Cameron Byrne-Hughes has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Plymouth Argyle have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The words a physio says slowly. 74 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
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.
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 Adrià Gené is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Xavier Amaechi signs something — a contract at Plymouth Argyle or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Sheffield Wednesday next, and one man in the Plymouth Argyle dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
0‑3 against Nottingham Forest, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Plymouth Argyle is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Plymouth Argyle heard it as anything else.
Gonzalo 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.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
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.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout23 Dec 2030
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Anthony Evans to a room that had heard them before.
Leicester City will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Plymouth Argyle were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Plymouth Argyle this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nathaniel-Junior Brown was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Something was said to Diego Gómez and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout22 Oct 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Anthony Evans kept it short after the 4‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Will Dickson