Marked for Ismail Mukhtar
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match19 Aug 2026
Kwara United ended it 2‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Match22 Aug 2026
Adamu Ibrahim wins it after the whistle should have gone
91 minutes played. Adamu Ibrahim found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Wikki Tourists went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Crisconti Larry at 19 — 8.26
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Crisconti Larry did not need any: 8.26, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market24 Aug 2026
Bunu Sale hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what El-Kanemi Warriors can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Aug 2026
53 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Sylvester Igboun 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The medical room confirms 40 days on the sidelines for Daddy Abdulrahman, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Market24 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. El-Kanemi Warriors have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 39. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A move Olanrewaju Ayinla would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Olanrewaju Ayinla is living that version at El-Kanemi Warriors, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market10 Aug 2026
The shirt still fits. Olanrewaju Ayinla is back at El-Kanemi Warriors, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at El-Kanemi Warriors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to David Habila, and the manager let it.
Match8 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Emmanuel Nwabufo 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 Aug 2026
Words at El-Kanemi Warriors training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sama'ila Bello 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 terraces3 Aug 2026
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.
Match1 Aug 2026
A 2‑0 win over Abia Warriors, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Market3 Aug 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Emmanuel Nwabufo has his answer from El-Kanemi Warriors; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Bilal Yakubu
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.22, and no argument anywhere in the ground.