Marked for Eugene Nyarko
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match9 Aug 2036
14 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Market11 Aug 2036
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Blackburn Rovers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The dugout11 Aug 2036
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Blackburn Rovers have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market11 Aug 2036
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets11 Aug 2036
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Brighton keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Transfer targets11 Aug 2036
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.
Squad11 Aug 2036
Nathanael Blair 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.
Transfer targets11 Aug 2036
Wolverhampton 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 targets11 Aug 2036
A loan enquiry to Arsenal: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market28 Jul 2036
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Blackburn Rovers is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad28 Jul 2036
Ilyes Ziani and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets28 Jul 2036
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Brentford have kept their man, and Blackburn Rovers go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad28 Jul 2036
Lois Lacroix 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.
Transfer targets28 Jul 2036
Aston Villa 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 targets28 Jul 2036
A loan move for Emilio Lawrence is in the works
Blackburn Rovers have made the call to Nottingham Forest. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets28 Jul 2036
Sheffield United 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.
Market28 Jul 2036
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with John Cooper’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom2 Jun 2036
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Quincy Dost has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market2 Jun 2036
“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 Blackburn Rovers, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout2 Jun 2036
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Blackburn Rovers may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market2 Jun 2036
Only the photograph left for Daniel Kubát
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daniel Kubát will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Blackburn Rovers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom2 Jun 2036
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Transfer targets2 Jun 2036
Blackburn Rovers asked and Stoke City said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad2 Jun 2036
Harrison Dudziak 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 dugout2 Jun 2036
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Squad2 Jun 2036
Words at Blackburn Rovers training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lois Lacroix 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match23 Feb 2036
No end in sight to Blackburn Rovers's wait for a win
9 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Blackburn Rovers has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings25 Feb 2036
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Squad25 Feb 2036
Lahlou Akhrib 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.
Match23 Feb 2036
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad25 Feb 2036
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
The dugout25 Feb 2036
The manager makes an example of Aminu Sani
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout25 Feb 2036
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Quincy Dost after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Market25 Feb 2036
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Eugene Nyarko has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Blackburn Rovers.
Squad25 Feb 2036
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market2 Apr 2035
Luke Thompson 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 Bradford City can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout2 Apr 2035
Martín Muñoz: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bradford City have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad2 Apr 2035
Joseph Cowan and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad2 Apr 2035
Timothy Smith 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.
Squad2 Apr 2035
Timothy Smith named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Timothy Smith is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Market2 Apr 2035
James Ward is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Bradford City has been clear about where James Ward stands, which is more than many ever get.
Looking ahead2 Apr 2035
Leicester City top the table and they are coming into view. Nothing to lose, which is what every manager says before losing.
The dugout2 Apr 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Eugene Nyarko, and the manager let it.
The dugout2 Apr 2035
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings13 Nov 2034
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.60, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match11 Nov 2034
7 matches without a win for Bradford City
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Bradford City are no longer polite ones.
Squad13 Nov 2034
Joseph Cowan 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.
Squad13 Nov 2034
Liam Crutchett 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.
Player ratings13 Nov 2034
Jacob Reid runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match11 Nov 2034
Late, late show earns Bradford City a point
Minute 93, against Swindon Town, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Match11 Nov 2034
It finished 3‑3, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad13 Nov 2034
12 new faces, and Bradford City 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.
The dugout13 Nov 2034
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Interim Coach chose the glass-half-full version of 3‑3; the supporters left with the other one.