It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tusker this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Tusker training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abud Omar 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Ronny Otieno
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Ronny Otieno has come out of that comparison in the side, and Tusker have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Two goals and a mark of 8.51 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tusker this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Tusker and Nairobi United in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
The offer from Kenya Police for Servyl Akouala was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Thomas Omole reports back to Tusker with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Marked 8.24 — 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Abud Omar 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.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 15 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The deal with Kaizer Chiefs 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tusker this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Servyl Akouala has come up in conversations Tusker were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Ian Simiyu Jr. has come out of that comparison in the side, and Tusker have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and John Otieno was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Thomas Omole's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. University of Pretoria have kept their man, and Tusker go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 23 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tusker this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A loan enquiry to Mamelodi Sundowns: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.