Marked for Timilehin Olukotun
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Nov 2026
47 days out for Omolabi Owolabi after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Kun Khalifat will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Michael Akano 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Lekan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Louis Umoh
“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 dugout23 Nov 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Timilehin Olukotun trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad28 Sep 2026
42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Kun Khalifat lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Omolabi Owolabi out for 103 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Kun Khalifat will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match26 Sep 2026
8 matches without a win for Kun Khalifat
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Kun Khalifat are no longer polite ones.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Abah Chinonso is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Michael Akano 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
Plateau United left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Chidera Moffi after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Timilehin Olukotun, and the manager let it.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 117 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match12 Sep 2026
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Tega Ebetomane commits to Kun Khalifat for another 3 years.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Chinonso Romanus 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Hassan Olubode 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 ratings14 Sep 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.39 on the card, and the Kun Khalifat support went home talking about one name.
Match12 Sep 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Chidera Moffi after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sunday Adehi, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match8 Aug 2026
1‑4 against Remo Stars, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Market10 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Kun Khalifat did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Kun Khalifat had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Remo Stars, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad10 Aug 2026
64 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Goalkeepers do not get to make mistakes; they get to make goals. He made one, he knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Kun Khalifat asked and Remo Stars said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Hassan Olubode 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Olayinka Sadiq is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ifeanyi Lawal is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.