The offer from Peterborough United for Sam Long 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.
Oxford United offered $5.1M; Sunderland 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Oxford United, and it is not being withdrawn.
The fee is $980.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Birmingham drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The deal with Grimsby Town is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Sepp van den Berg and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Words at Oxford United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mamadou Doumbia 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.
Add another name to the list: Grimsby Town have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jacob Pryts. The answer from Oxford United has not changed — yet.
In brief
Squad6 new faces, and Oxford United are still learning each other
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.
Sepp van den Berg 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Fernando Martínez has just signed for Oxford United, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad26 Mar 2029
Words at Oxford United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mamadou Doumbia 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. 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Sepp van den Berg's mistake
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Oxford United heard it as anything else.
Brian De Keersmaecker and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Words at Oxford United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mamadou Doumbia 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.
Nobody at Oxford 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Oxford United will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Sepp van den Berg signs something — a contract at Oxford United or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Will Mannion has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Sepp van den Berg 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Ben Trueman has, at Oxford United, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
7 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.
The dugout9 Oct 2028
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 Liam Wood left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Marcus Neill 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.