Marked for Danssabe Tanko
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Jul 2030
15 days out for Kevin Vanaken after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. De Graafschap will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Match1 Jul 2030
Position 18, 9 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
The dugout1 Jul 2030
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” De Graafschap may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad1 Jul 2030
Sam Lammers 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.
Squad1 Jul 2030
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Danssabe Tanko is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad1 Jul 2030
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Transfer targets1 Jul 2030
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets1 Jul 2030
Utrecht have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets1 Jul 2030
PSV have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad29 Apr 2030
78 days out for Kevin Vanaken after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. De Graafschap will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad29 Apr 2030
Sam Lammers 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.
Squad29 Apr 2030
Mehdi Bounou 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.
Market29 Apr 2030
The name of Jerayno Hunte keeps appearing in other people's back pages. De Graafschap say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout29 Apr 2030
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Francisco Rivera trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout29 Apr 2030
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 Quincy Mac Donald has written the date down.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Mar 2030
129 days out for Kevin Vanaken after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. De Graafschap will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Match9 Mar 2030
No end in sight to De Graafschap's wait for a win
12 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at De Graafschap has to find a result from somewhere.
Match9 Mar 2030
No clean sheets in sight for De Graafschap
12 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Match11 Mar 2030
Every point is an argument now for De Graafschap
Position 18 and 6 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market11 Mar 2030
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings11 Mar 2030
Successful dribbles: 24. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad11 Mar 2030
Ibrahim El Kadiri 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.
Squad11 Mar 2030
Words at De Graafschap training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sam Lammers 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.
Match9 Mar 2030
ADO Den Haag left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Sep 2029
The knee: Sam Lammers out for 81 days
81 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. De Graafschap lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match8 Sep 2029
14 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The terraces10 Sep 2029
Anger at De Graafschap spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Player ratings10 Sep 2029
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout10 Sep 2029
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad10 Sep 2029
Sam Lammers and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets10 Sep 2029
De Graafschap ran out of time with ADO Den Haag. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Match8 Sep 2029
3 matches without a goal for De Graafschap
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Transfer targets10 Sep 2029
De Graafschap asked and Feyenoord said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match9 Jul 2029
Position 17, 20 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Market9 Jul 2029
Jerayno Hunte hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what De Graafschap can pretend not to have heard.
Market9 Jul 2029
The interest is real enough to have reached print. De Graafschap have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Sam Bouwman is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Transfer targets9 Jul 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Vitesse have kept their man, and De Graafschap go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Sam Lammers 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 De Graafschap this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Jul 2029
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Danssabe Tanko arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Danssabe Tanko has, at De Graafschap, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Transfer targets9 Jul 2029
A loan enquiry to Feyenoord: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.