Two or more conceded in each of the last 9 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ashanti Gold have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.01 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
5 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.
The deal with SuperSport United 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Mamelodi Sundowns have kept their man, and Ashanti Gold go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ashanti Gold will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ashanti Gold they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ashanti Gold can pretend not to have heard.
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Ashanti Gold training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emmanuel Nnaji 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Baba Mensah after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody at Ashanti Gold 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 61 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emmanuel Nnaji was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Kenneth Omeruo is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Peter Dakka trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ashanti Gold will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Peter Dakka has, at Ashanti Gold, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Everything agreed with Kaizer Chiefs, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Mamelodi Sundowns keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The shirt still fits. Peter Dakka is back at Ashanti Gold, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Isaac Hemans 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at Ashanti Gold training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Timothy Zechariah 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.
Ashanti Gold asked and Mamelodi Sundowns said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The deal with Mamelodi Sundowns 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Timothy Zechariah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
SuperSport 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.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ashanti Gold this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Ashanti Gold training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Seth Paintsil 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.
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 Carlos Ohene is on it.
Abdelmalek Necir is 34 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ashanti Gold, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Ashanti Gold. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Position 5 on 55 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
In brief
MarketThe clock does Peter Dakka’s negotiating for him
Kegan Johannes and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Ashanti Gold training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Elvis Manu 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Joseph Ablorh trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I will play as long as the body lets me and stop the day it does not.” He is 37, with 0 appearances behind him, and the club has to plan for a decision that is not yet made.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Ashanti Gold. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Position 5 on 55 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
The words a physio says slowly. 22 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Ashanti Gold training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Seth Paintsil 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Ashanti Gold pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Squad22 Mar 2027
5 new faces, and Ashanti Gold 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 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.
It needed Seth Paintsil to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Great Olympics, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
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 Kenneth Omeruo is on it.
Elvis Manu 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.
A 3‑1 win over Great Olympics, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Successful dribbles: 20. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Seth Paintsil 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.
“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.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Matías Esquivel was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.24. 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.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Fred Dabanka is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Kelvin Andoh
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.