Marked for Timilehin Olukotun
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market21 Sep 2026
Benson Benkin 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 Kun Khalifat can pretend not to have heard.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Brahim Sabaouni 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Kun Khalifat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chinonso Romanus 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Gabriel Lekan has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Kun Khalifat 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
6 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market14 Sep 2026
Shuaibu Olofu 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 Kun Khalifat can pretend not to have heard.
Squad14 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kun Khalifat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Brahim Sabaouni 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Market14 Sep 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad14 Sep 2026
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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Shots: 4. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
5.32 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Sep 2026
“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 Kun Khalifat, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Akpan Nsikak-Abong 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Kun Khalifat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brahim Sabaouni 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Marked 8.61 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alex Amaefula, and the manager let it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Gabriel Lekan named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Gabriel Lekan is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
A mark of 5.69 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
5.74. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Aug 2026
Ugochukwu Akuta damages knee ligaments — 14 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
Match19 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over Rangers International, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
The terraces24 Aug 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 12 of the 50 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 Kun Khalifat, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Akpan Nsikak-Abong 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Kun Khalifat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brahim Sabaouni 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Nasarawa United left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.05, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ugochukwu Akuta damages knee ligaments — 21 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
Match12 Aug 2026
A 0‑0 win over Katsina United, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Market17 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kun Khalifat can pretend not to have heard.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kun Khalifat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Brahim Sabaouni 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 ratings17 Aug 2026
Twelve yards, a goalkeeper guessing, and it still did not go in. He will take the next one, and every soul in the ground will hold their breath.
Market17 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Kun Khalifat, another week without a signature from Moses Mphekgoane.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 16, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.