It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arsenal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 9.39 — 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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Bukayo Saka 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.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Position 1, 42 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“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 The request is on a desk at Mosta, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Mosta, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Mosta the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
The deal that would have taken Azer Kozić to Sliema Wanderers has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Mosta with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
A season average of 7.10 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Mosta know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A season average of 7.08 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Mosta know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Simon Zibo 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.
Marked 8.91 — 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.
Marked 8.08 — 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.
Shots: 10. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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; Mosta are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Meshack Maphangule 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Diamanka Senghor. 1‑0 against Sliema Wanderers, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.24 — 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Mosta know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Position 1, 21 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Akpan Udoh 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 nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Mosta can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Gabriel Saliba is a Mosta player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
The shirt still fits. Daniel Sultana is back at Mosta, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Meshack Maphangule 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Mosta know it, and so does everybody who watches him.