Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 92 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.98 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AFC Wimbledon they have already started talking about him 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 AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dion Sanderson 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AFC Wimbledon will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Dion Sanderson 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.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ryan Johnson 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Yannick Woudstra. 2‑0 against Harrogate Town, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AFC Wimbledon will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AFC Wimbledon can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Brandon Cover 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AFC Wimbledon will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Ryan Johnson 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.
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around AFC Wimbledon are no longer polite ones.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dion Sanderson 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.
Rodrigo Bareiro 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Yannick Woudstra trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
5 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Harry Cornick and AFC Wimbledon agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Marcus Browne 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 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings9 Oct 2028
Jay Dasilva was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.08. 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at AFC Wimbledon, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AFC Wimbledon they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Harry Cornick and AFC Wimbledon agree another 2 years.
Dion Sanderson 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.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Harry Cornick 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.
Player ratings2 Oct 2028
Matty Stevens was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.21. 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AFC Wimbledon will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Dion Sanderson 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yannick Woudstra 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.
Marked 8.05 — 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at AFC Wimbledon, another week without a signature from Rodrigo Bareiro.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. AFC Wimbledon know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.91 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AFC Wimbledon can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Romeo Akachukwu is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AFC Wimbledon they have already started talking about him 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 AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AFC Wimbledon can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AFC Wimbledon they have already started talking about him 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 AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Nathan Bishop has improved at 28, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
In brief
SquadRyan Johnson falls out with a teammate over standards
BoardroomAFC Wimbledon pull $3.6M back off the table
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AFC Wimbledon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Antwoine Hackford will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AFC Wimbledon the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Harry Cornick 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 49 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AFC Wimbledon they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Ryan Johnson 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at AFC Wimbledon can tell you which week it ends in.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Marcus Browne signs something — a contract at AFC Wimbledon or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Harry Amass, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.70
A mark of 7.70 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-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 AFC Wimbledon they have already started talking about him 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 AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ryan Johnson 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 needed Matty Stevens to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Rotherham United, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at AFC Wimbledon, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AFC Wimbledon they have already started talking about him 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 AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Femi Azeez 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.
Marked 8.26 — 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at AFC Wimbledon pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Yannick Woudstra signs something — a contract at AFC Wimbledon or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at AFC Wimbledon is running low.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at AFC Wimbledon can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AFC Wimbledon they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Marcus Browne 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 Apr 2028
Femi Azeez 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jake Reeves will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AFC Wimbledon the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.08, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ryan Johnson 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.
Marked 8.10 — 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. AFC Wimbledon know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Omar Bugiel will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AFC Wimbledon the goodbyes have quietly begun.
4 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Henry Bullen has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
“The easiest signature of my career.” George McEachran and AFC Wimbledon agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Harry Amass 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.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Ryan Johnson 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 44 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Femi Azeez 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AFC Wimbledon will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There were 85 minutes on the clock and Notts County had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and AFC Wimbledon did not stop to explain themselves.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
A brace, and Femi Azeez takes the afternoon — 8.55
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Femi Azeez provided it, and the 8.55 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ryan Johnson 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Femi Azeez. 2‑1 against Notts County, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Enso González wants continental football; whether AFC Wimbledon can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. AFC Wimbledon know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 112 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
4 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Femi Azeez 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad15 Nov 2027
7 new faces, and AFC Wimbledon are still learning each other
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 144 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AFC Wimbledon have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Femi Azeez 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.
Boardroom18 Oct 2027
Nobody left the AFC Wimbledon dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
In brief
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Nathan Bishop
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Nathan Bishop: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
A 2‑1 win over Peterborough United, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AFC Wimbledon have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AFC Wimbledon have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Dion Sanderson 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ryan Johnson 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.
A season-long audition: Manchester United still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are AFC Wimbledon's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AFC Wimbledon have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AFC Wimbledon can pretend not to have heard.
Dion Sanderson 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Nicolò Perissinotto has just signed for AFC Wimbledon, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Femi Azeez 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.
Nicolò Perissinotto is 19, and AFC Wimbledon have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Yannick Woudstra decided nobody was going anywhere. Exeter City had no time left to answer.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The chase for Charlie Barker ended with $220.0K changing hands and Crawley Town out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 27 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Enso González 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 May 2027
Femi Azeez 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.
5 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at AFC Wimbledon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Femi Azeez 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.
A performance of 8.07 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad12 Apr 2027
5 new faces, and AFC Wimbledon are still learning each other
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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; AFC Wimbledon are dealing with a man who wants a different country.