Jamie Vardy 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.
Something was said to Martín Payero and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
Hellas Verona next, and one man in the Cremonese dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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 Milan Đurić has written the date down.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Manuel De Luca’s exile
1 for Michele Collocolo, marked 7.91, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Davide Garatti 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.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Adriano Vannucci kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $240.3K — a club that wants Ivan Smolčić enough to be asked twice.
Cremonese offered $230.0K; Como said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cádiz have kept their man, and Cremonese go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Gabriele Bono 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Cremonese 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 Cremonese can pretend not to have heard.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $240.3K — a club that wants Arvid Brorsson enough to be asked twice.
Jamie Vardy 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.
$220.0K was the most the club would pay and Monza were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
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.
In brief
BoardroomCremonese say no to the training-ground money