Marked for Hodei Arrillaga
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Jun 2027
134 days out for Gastón Arraya after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Eibar will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market28 Jun 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
Imanol: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Eibar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market28 Jun 2027
Only the photograph left for Luis Soria
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Luis Soria will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Eibar the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market28 Jun 2027
The paperwork is done: Gonzalo Almenara joins from Ceuta in a deal worth $760.0K. Now comes the harder part.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Juan Bernat in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Iván Gil has improved at 27, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Matías Scigliano is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
Javi Martón gets it from the manager
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match13 Feb 2027
Chastening afternoon for Mirandés
A 0‑3 beating by Las Palmas was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Álvaro Odriozola 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Thiago Helguera 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.
Match13 Feb 2027
Mirandés cannot find the net
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Igor Nikić
“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.
Boardroom15 Feb 2027
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match24 Oct 2026
No end in sight to Mirandés's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Mirandés has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad26 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Mirandés
Javi Hernàndez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Mirandés
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nico Serrano was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match24 Oct 2026
0‑1 to Córdoba, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout26 Oct 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
24 new faces, and Mirandés 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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Nicolás Gómez
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.