Victor Dawa 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.
9 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Plateau United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrew Majalisa 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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Ossy Martins is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Plateau United 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 Tarabina Biweribo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Plateau United 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Plateau United. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Successful dribbles: 30. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Maren Kefas, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.07
A mark of 8.07 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Plateau United they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 93. Katsina United had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
“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 Plateau United will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Plateau United told Mafeng Pam something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Successful dribbles: 34. 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.
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Kun Khalifat, and it could have been more.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A brace, and Gimba Ajiji takes the afternoon — 8.66
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gimba Ajiji provided it, and the 8.66 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Victor Dawa 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.
Marked 9.08 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Plateau United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ossy Martins 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gimba Ajiji, and the manager let it.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Jamilu Olayinka, on a 3‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Plateau United can pretend not to have heard.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Maren Kefas did not need any: 8.00, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
7.64, 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.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 0 arrived, 11 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Victor Dawa 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.
At 20 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 offer from Victoria United for John Amah 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 nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Plateau United can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Plateau United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Daniel Aboh again, and this time the name on the line is Maccabi Haifa. Plateau United are listening politely and promising nothing.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Mafeng Pam has his answer from Plateau United; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Out, 2‑3 to Nasarawa United, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Domnan Panse will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Plateau United the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Napredak have kept their man, and Plateau United go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 23 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.
In brief
Player ratingsPaul Samson was on a different afternoon to everybody else
SquadOssy Martins falls out with a teammate over standards
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Temitope Adaralegbe has agreed terms with Rivers United for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Temitope Adaralegbe will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Plateau United the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Victor Dawa 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.
At 18 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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Plateau United people have started saying his name in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Plateau United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
48 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Plateau United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrew Majalisa 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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Jamilu Olayinka after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Victor Dawa 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 name of Domnan Panse has come up in conversations Plateau United were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Paul Odeh 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.
Still no offer on the table, and Paul Samson’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Jamilu Olayinka left the room before anybody could ask which.