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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Berekum Chelsea 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 Berekum Chelsea this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augustine Agyapong was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
102 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Berekum Chelsea lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Richmond Lamptey 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.
The offer from AS Bakaridjan for Johnson Amuzu 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.
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.
Richmond Lamptey 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.
Berekum Chelsea asked and FC Lahti said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Add another name to the list: New Edubiase United have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Yaw Dankwah. The answer from Berekum Chelsea has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kofi Patric Ansu 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Berekum Chelsea can pretend not to have heard.
Richmond Lamptey 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Johnson Amuzu 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 8.17 — 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.
Richmond Lamptey 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Frank Abora Duku 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Berekum Chelsea told Philip Amoh something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ebuka Akobundu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.