The offer went to Gor Mahia 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.
Alex Imbusia 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Mara Sugar are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Mara Sugar have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
In brief
The dugoutThomas Harun asks for a word with the manager
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Mara Sugar have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Alex Imbusia 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.
Mara Sugar offered $29.0K; Gor Mahia said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kamohelo Hoala was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Mara Sugar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Lwandile Khawuta 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mara Sugar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Comfort Ngubo and Mara Sugar agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Mara Sugar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joseph Odhiambo 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Mara Sugar are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Michael Isabwa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Nobody at Mara Sugar is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Pentjie Zulu 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.
Something was said to Joseph Odhiambo and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Thomas Harun was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad12 Oct 2026
5 new faces, and Mara Sugar 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Benard Okinyi’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Mara Sugar needing him to play as if none of it matters.
In brief
The dugoutThomas Harun knocks on the manager’s door
Pentjie Zulu 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.
Michael Isabwa scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Gor Mahia, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
134% of the income goes out in wages at Mara Sugar
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Michael Isabwa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Mara Sugar know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
The dugout5 Oct 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 1‑2 Duncan Kagere left the room before anybody could ask which.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Alex Imbusia 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Gor Mahia in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 19 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Mara Sugar will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Tusker have kept their man, and Mara Sugar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Michael Isabwa has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
5 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.
In brief
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for Silas Oningo