Marked for Abdulrasheed Shehu
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2026
Aniekeme Okon 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Rivers United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Okechukwu Azubuike 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
0‑2 to Rangers International, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Alex Oyowah beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 13. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The form table has caught Isaac Annor
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Squad21 Sep 2026
At 27 he has made the position his own, and the man he took it from has to find something to say about it. Rivers United have a decision that made itself.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Okechukwu Azubuike 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.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Rivers United ran out of time with Nasarawa United. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Market14 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Aminu Babatunde has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Akintunde Azeez 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 dugout14 Sep 2026
“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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Jude Mamman has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Rivers 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. 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.
Match26 Aug 2026
Out, 1‑2 to Kwara United, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Akintunde Azeez gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Akintunde Azeez has just signed for Rivers United, and for once the answer mattered.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Aniekeme Okon 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.
Boardroom31 Aug 2026
Rangers International will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Emmanuel Okoko has pre-agreed a move to Rivers United, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Okechukwu Azubuike was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ikorodu City have kept their man, and Rivers United go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 36. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Jude Mamman takes the match ball home
4 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Match19 Aug 2026
A 5‑2 win over Bayelsa United, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Jude Mamman, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 9.44
A mark of 9.44 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Isa Aji arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Isa Aji has, at Rivers United, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Aniekeme Okon 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.