Daniel Iversen and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Notts County training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bradley Dack 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.
Boardroom11 Oct 2027
95% of the income goes out in wages at Notts County
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jodi Jones trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Notts County 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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Innes Cameron has written the date down.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 91th minute. Bolton Wanderers will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Two goals and a mark of 8.56 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Daniel Iversen 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.
A 2‑1 win over Bolton Wanderers, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Notts County lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Notts County people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Ipswich Town moved on, Daniel Iversen reports back to Notts County, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Notts County close the window on a squad of their own making
33 in and 24 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Bradley Dack has just signed for Notts County, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Notts County this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Martín Quiñonez is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Notts County asked and Crystal Palace said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Notts County have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Notts County can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Valletta will make the call about Jack Griffin this week. Notts County have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Squad30 Aug 2027
12 new faces, and Notts County 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.
In brief
The dugoutOdel Offiah knocks on the manager’s door
Nottingham Forest wanted more than $9.7M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Notts County have gone to Wolverhampton with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer went to Manchester United 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.
Daniel Iversen 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.
Notts County have gone to Bristol Rovers with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Notts County will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Notts County people have started saying his name in the past tense.
$2.4M on the table at Luton Town. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Notts County this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Notts County asked and Queens Park Rangers said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Notts County training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zak Sturge 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.
Jack Griffin is 20, and Notts County have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Notts County are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Bristol City is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Rob Atkinson 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.
“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.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Jack Edwards to a room that had heard them before.
“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 Bristol City, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Shkelqim Demhasaj 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Bristol City know it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Bristol City told Shkelqim Demhasaj something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Jack Edwards to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Sam Greenwood
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bristol City can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
12 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.