Marked for Job Brecelj
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad19 Jan 2032
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 16 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Market19 Jan 2032
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Oxford United waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tranmere Rovers is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Squad19 Jan 2032
James Plant 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.
Transfer targets19 Jan 2032
Stevenage wanted more than $28.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad19 Jan 2032
Words at Tranmere Rovers training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luke Woolfenden 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.
Transfer targets19 Jan 2032
Tranmere Rovers asked and Fulham said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Player ratings19 Jan 2032
A performance of 8.28 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout19 Jan 2032
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Dec 2031
A season average of 7.60 with 20 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
The dugout15 Dec 2031
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Match13 Dec 2031
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Match13 Dec 2031
1‑2 to Accrington Stanley, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout15 Dec 2031
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad15 Dec 2031
Job Brecelj 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.
Squad15 Dec 2031
Max Ruddock 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 dugout15 Dec 2031
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Luke Woolfenden is on it.
The dugout15 Dec 2031
The manager makes an example of George Russell
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market24 Nov 2031
Tom Kljun puts it in writing
“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 Tranmere Rovers, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Nov 2031
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.
Match22 Nov 2031
No end in sight to Tranmere Rovers's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Tranmere Rovers has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad24 Nov 2031
“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 Tranmere Rovers know it.
Squad24 Nov 2031
James Plant 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.
Match22 Nov 2031
AFC Wimbledon left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout24 Nov 2031
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad24 Nov 2031
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Job Brecelj was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings24 Nov 2031
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad13 Oct 2031
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings13 Oct 2031
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.06, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings13 Oct 2031
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match11 Oct 2031
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad13 Oct 2031
James Plant and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad13 Oct 2031
Duván Riascos is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.42 with 10 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings13 Oct 2031
Duván Riascos was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.78. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Market13 Oct 2031
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Luigi Esposito has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Tranmere Rovers.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match17 Sep 2031
Portsmouth are out and Tranmere Rovers go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Market22 Sep 2031
“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.
Match17 Sep 2031
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 86th, and Portsmouth spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Match20 Sep 2031
The unbeaten run reaches 11. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
The dugout22 Sep 2031
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Squad22 Sep 2031
“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 Tranmere Rovers know it.
Squad22 Sep 2031
James Plant 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 Tranmere Rovers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings22 Sep 2031
James Plant was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.32. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings22 Sep 2031
A performance of 8.21 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The terraces18 Aug 2031
Anger at Tranmere Rovers 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 ratings18 Aug 2031
Successful dribbles: 34. 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.
The dugout18 Aug 2031
“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.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Max Ruddock is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad18 Aug 2031
James Plant and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom18 Aug 2031
7 academy players handed senior numbers at Tranmere Rovers
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Words at Tranmere Rovers training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Omari Patrick 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.
Transfer targets18 Aug 2031
Tranmere Rovers asked and West Bromwich Albion said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Job Brecelj has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces21 Jul 2031
Anger at Tranmere Rovers 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.
Market21 Jul 2031
Andréa Heckel 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 Tranmere Rovers can pretend not to have heard.
Squad21 Jul 2031
At 23 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad21 Jul 2031
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.
Squad21 Jul 2031
29 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad21 Jul 2031
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dario Melnjak and Tranmere Rovers agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Transfer targets21 Jul 2031
A loan enquiry to Tottenham: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets21 Jul 2031
Sunderland 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 targets21 Jul 2031
A loan move for Casper Lindner is in the works
Tranmere Rovers have made the call to Millwall. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom7 Jul 2031
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The dugout7 Jul 2031
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Tranmere Rovers may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Transfer targets7 Jul 2031
The deal with Sunderland 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.
Transfer targets7 Jul 2031
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Manchester United is saying, and nobody at Tranmere Rovers is enjoying the guessing.
Squad7 Jul 2031
“The easiest signature of my career.” Omari Patrick and Tranmere Rovers agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad7 Jul 2031
James Plant 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.
Squad7 Jul 2031
Words at Tranmere Rovers training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luigi Esposito 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.
Transfer targets7 Jul 2031
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Manchester United have kept their man, and Tranmere Rovers go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market7 Jul 2031
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings16 Jun 2031
Two goals and a mark of 9.16 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad16 Jun 2031
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings16 Jun 2031
Omari Patrick, 35, rolls back the years — 7.94
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.94 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The dugout16 Jun 2031
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Tranmere Rovers may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Transfer targets16 Jun 2031
The deal with Luton Town 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.
Match14 Jun 2031
It had gone 7 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Squad16 Jun 2031
Damjan Vuklišević 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.
Transfer targets16 Jun 2031
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Swansea City have kept their man, and Tranmere Rovers go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match14 Jun 2031
It finished 2‑0, and it was Luigi Esposito’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Tranmere Rovers.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market9 Jun 2031
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Peterborough United waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tranmere Rovers is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Player ratings9 Jun 2031
Two goals and a mark of 8.89 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match7 Jun 2031
No end in sight to Tranmere Rovers's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Tranmere Rovers has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad9 Jun 2031
7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Match7 Jun 2031
7 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.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Damjan Vuklišević 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 targets9 Jun 2031
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bristol Rovers have kept their man, and Tranmere Rovers go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luke Woolfenden was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout9 Jun 2031
The manager makes an example of Job Brecelj
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom2 Jun 2031
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Tranmere Rovers is running low.
Boardroom2 Jun 2031
Interim Coach has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Tranmere Rovers can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Market2 Jun 2031
“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 Tranmere Rovers, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market2 Jun 2031
Wrexham come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Tranmere Rovers did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Match31 May 2031
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Tranmere Rovers are no longer polite ones.
The dugout2 Jun 2031
“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.
Match31 May 2031
Two or more conceded in each of the last 6 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Player ratings2 Jun 2031
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad2 Jun 2031
A move Alexander Drexel would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Alexander Drexel is living that version at Tranmere Rovers, and it tends to show in the first month.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match20 Apr 2030
Zalgiris cannot stop winning
19 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Match20 Apr 2030
Stumbras will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Zalgiris were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings22 Apr 2030
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.48, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad22 Apr 2030
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 35 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match20 Apr 2030
Zalgiris are at home on the road
8 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Market22 Apr 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.
Market22 Apr 2030
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Zalgiris is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad22 Apr 2030
Defences have started doubling up on Rokas Klimavicius
14 goals and a season average of 7.32 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad22 Apr 2030
Words at Zalgiris training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kipras Kažukolovas 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.