The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Sunderland people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 The request is on a desk at Sunderland, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Sunderland can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sunderland this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Sunderland have gone to Crystal Palace with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Colchester United will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Fabio Kluit has pre-agreed a move to Sunderland, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
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
Transfer targetsA loan move for Matthew Simmons is in the works
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Finley Munroe
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Boardroom23 Jun 2036
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Middlesbrough
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Coventry City waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Middlesbrough is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Middlesbrough can pretend not to have heard.
The offer went to Huddersfield Town this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
$9.0K on the table at Crystal Palace. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Middlesbrough have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from Sheffield Wednesday for Jurriën Timber was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Middlesbrough and West Bromwich Albion have settled on $730.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The phone has started ringing about Alex Robertson again, and this time the name on the line is Birmingham. Middlesbrough are listening politely and promising nothing.
Jurriën Timber 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.
$140.0K on the table at Arsenal. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Tim Werner has, at Middlesbrough, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
In brief
The dugoutJurriën Timber has become a man the manager trusts
Squad11 new faces, and Middlesbrough are still learning each other
SquadWords at Middlesbrough training over how hard people work
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“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 Middlesbrough, and it is not being withdrawn.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Middlesbrough is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The offer went to West Bromwich Albion this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
$460.0K on the table at Wolverhampton. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Brandon López 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.
Squad2 Jun 2036
Yohann Obin 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.
Position 15 on 37 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. August Priske is living that version at Manchester United, and it tends to show in the first month.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. August Priske is a Manchester United player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. August Priske 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Manchester United will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 12 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Manchester United they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Manchester United have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Antonio Carrizo has, at Manchester United, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
West Ham United will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Arda Ünyay has pre-agreed a move to Manchester United, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Cole Palmer will call it something else in private.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Manchester United know it.
The words a physio says slowly. 104 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 120 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Manchester United has to find a result from somewhere.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Manchester United know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
132 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Manchester United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Manchester United is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Manchester United, and 0 appearances in 8 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Manchester United have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
39 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
The approach has gone in and the answer belongs to Universidad Catolica. Business like this is done quietly and reported loudly, and rarely in that order.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Manchester United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. the manager has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
“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 Manchester United, and it is not being withdrawn.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Manchester United have done the hard part with Arsenal, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lazar Balević will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Manchester United the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Lazar Balević has agreed terms with Sheffield Wednesday for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Tottenham have kept their man, and Manchester United go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Will Grainger has just signed for Manchester United, and for once the answer mattered.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Manchester United is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Manchester United are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Manchester United have made the call to Bournemouth. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The clubs have shaken hands with Manchester United; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Brighton people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Brighton they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Brighton will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Brighton asked and Wolverhampton said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.2M — a club that wants Jaydan Kamason enough to be asked twice.
The deal with Middlesbrough is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
“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 Manchester United, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deal with Middlesbrough is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Nobody at Manchester United will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Pau Cubarsí signs something — a contract at Manchester United or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Position 5 on 67 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
The offer from Portsmouth for Jurriën Timber was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“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 Middlesbrough, and it is not being withdrawn.
Add another name to the list: Nottingham Forest have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Lukáš Horníček. The answer from Middlesbrough has not changed — yet.
Jurriën Timber 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.
Squad16 Jul 2035
Words at Middlesbrough training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Harvey Vale 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Middlesbrough can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Middlesbrough is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Middlesbrough have done the hard part with Olympique de Marseille, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
$500.0K on the table at Southampton. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Matai Akinmboni 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.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Words at Middlesbrough training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Harvey Vale 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Danijel Đurić is living that version at Middlesbrough, and it tends to show in the first month.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Jurriën Timber had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Middlesbrough people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 Middlesbrough, and it is not being withdrawn.
Middlesbrough asked and Arsenal said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Péter Baráth was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Middlesbrough will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
In brief
SquadMiddlesbrough are still strangers to each other
The dugoutDilane Bakwa asks for a word with the manager
The words a physio says slowly. 64 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Boardroom2 Apr 2035
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Middlesbrough
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Jurriën Timber 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Middlesbrough is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Joe Bradshaw has agreed terms with Brentford for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad2 Apr 2035
Words at Middlesbrough training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fer López 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.
“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 Brighton, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Brighton heard it as anything else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Brighton they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Álex Jiménez 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Seb Revan has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Wesley Fofana was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Pascal Struijk has his answer from Brighton; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“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 Middlesbrough, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Middlesbrough is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
A point taken on 89 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
“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.
Squad1 Jan 2035
Words at Middlesbrough training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dom Jefferies 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.