Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Perr Schuurs 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.
Melle Meulensteen 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Borja Mayoral is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Go Ahead Eagles would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Amine Lachkar trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
Player ratingsOff the bench and decisive: Mathis Albert
A 2‑1 win over Den Bosch, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Mathis Albert, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 8.00
A mark of 8.00 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Perr Schuurs 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.
Melle Meulensteen 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.
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.
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Go Ahead Eagles lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Perr Schuurs 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jakob Breum 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Go Ahead Eagles, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Jakob Breum 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Go Ahead Eagles has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.