A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Bendel Insurance will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Chidi Akuneto 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.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Ahmed Musa 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Bendel Insurance. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Alex Oweilayefa has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bendel Insurance can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Bendel Insurance will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Bendel Insurance, and both men came out saying it was fine.
4 goals in 32 games at Niger Tornadoes — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Bendel Insurance updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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 Isaac Omijie has written the date down.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bendel Insurance they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Ibrahim Sabiu 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Wisdom Udom trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bendel Insurance have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bendel Insurance they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobi Ige 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.
75 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bendel Insurance lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Bendel Insurance people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bendel Insurance can pretend not to have heard.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 4 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Emmanuel Nwokeji will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bendel Insurance the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Bendel Insurance asked and Barau said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
129 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bendel Insurance lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Oke Kayode trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
5 goals in 8 games at Katsina United — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Bendel Insurance updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.