Emmanuel Inusah 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.
Squad24 May 2027
Patrick Ayew 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at WAFA, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Crespo’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
“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 The request is on a desk at WAFA, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at WAFA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Moses Mphekgoane trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Position 8 on 42 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” WAFA have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Emmanuel Inusah 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 performance of 8.05 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Kwame Annan left the room before anybody could ask which.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Yaw Adjei, and the manager let it.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Patrick Ayew 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Moses Mphekgoane 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. WAFA know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nobody at WAFA 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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at WAFA would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
In brief
The dugoutKwame Kudus knocks on the manager’s door
Emmanuel Inusah 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.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Andrew Nuhu. 1‑0 against New Edubiase United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
Crespo is 19, and WAFA have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patrick Ayew was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.