Marked for Emmanuel Nnaji
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Sep 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Rivers United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match5 Sep 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Rivers United have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Aniekeme Okon and Rivers United agree another 4 years.
Squad7 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rivers United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Effimi Nsi 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Maclyn Biokpo Jenewari. 2‑1 against Kano Pillars, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Marked 8.11 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Seyi Oguntayo, and the manager let it.
Market7 Sep 2026
Everyone has stopped pretending: Enyimba will make the call about Sylvester Bell this week. Rivers United have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Rivers United did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad17 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Rangers International will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Segun Olurontoba 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Alan Minaglia has outgrown this division
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Rivers United know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 7.53 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Rivers United had the best player on the pitch.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Rivers United 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Match15 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Katsina United will be the happier side with the point.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 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.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Auwalu Ali Malam has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Rivers United have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Paschal Durugbor 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Seyi Oguntayo, and the manager let it.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Friday Ubong has outgrown this division
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Rivers United know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Market10 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Match8 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Market10 Aug 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Douglas Iyowuna has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Rivers United.