Arkhan Kaka, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.98
A mark of 7.98 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Arkhan Kaka 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.
Marked 8.52 — 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSM this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Beckham Baker did not need any: 7.67, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luka Čumić 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.
Aloísio Soares 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.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 85 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.
Gabriel Popovic 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
In brief
SquadAnanda Raehan falls out with a teammate over standards
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 106 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Two goals and a mark of 7.94 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Muhammadrasul Abdumajidov 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.
Aloísio Soares 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. PSM lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 15 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at PSM, and 2 appearances in 14 say he has earned the hearing.
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. PSM lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 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.” PSM have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. PSM lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason PSM will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. PSM lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 38 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. PSM lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” PSM have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 45 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
50 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. PSM lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason PSM will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. PSM will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The words a physio says slowly. 58 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason PSM will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” PSM have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
In brief
SquadGledson falls out with a teammate over standards
The words a physio says slowly. 65 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 68 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
In brief
SquadWords at PSM training over how hard people work