Marked for Idowu Aremu
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market12 Jun 2028
The bid was some way short and Shooting Stars did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market12 Jun 2028
“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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Mustapha Lawal 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.
Boardroom12 Jun 2028
Bayelsa United will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Victor Pupamo has pre-agreed a move to Shooting Stars, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Market12 Jun 2028
The name of Nathaniel Asibe has come up in conversations Shooting Stars were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad12 Jun 2028
The manager makes an example of Silas Nwankwo
“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.
Match10 Jun 2028
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Player ratings12 Jun 2028
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match6 May 2028
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Shooting Stars are no longer polite ones.
Squad8 May 2028
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.
Market8 May 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Shooting Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad8 May 2028
Muhammed Kabiru 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.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at Shooting Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ghali Falke 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 ratings8 May 2028
Defensive actions: 20, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad8 May 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gbolagade Adelowo, and the manager let it.
Player ratings8 May 2028
16 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Match6 May 2028
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Bendel Insurance will be the happier side with the point.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market28 Feb 2028
“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 Shooting Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Muhammed Kabiru 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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
“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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Muyiwa Balogun 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 ratings28 Feb 2028
7.51, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Shooting Stars had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
15 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Ismail Ayodele dropped after a run of poor form
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 ratings28 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom20 Dec 2027
Pressure builds in the Shooting Stars boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market20 Dec 2027
“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.
Market20 Dec 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Christian Dawariomi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Shooting Stars the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad20 Dec 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shooting Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Ghali Falke 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.
Squad20 Dec 2027
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
Boardroom27 Sep 2027
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Shooting Stars is running low.
Market27 Sep 2027
Idowu Aremu 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 Shooting Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Market27 Sep 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Shooting Stars is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad27 Sep 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shooting Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Dokou Dodo 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.
Squad27 Sep 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Austin Onyemaechi, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market22 Feb 2027
“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 Shooting Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
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.
Market22 Feb 2027
Only the photograph left for Ozovehe Adeiza
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ozovehe Adeiza will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Shooting Stars the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad22 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shooting Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Dokou Dodo 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
“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.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Marked 7.47 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Shooting Stars had the best player on the pitch.
Squad22 Feb 2027
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.