The words a physio says slowly. 140 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Southern United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Alex Sutton 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.
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Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
“I watch every Southern United game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Waitakere United runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Southern United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Southern United can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Southern United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The offer from Canterbury United for Callum Smith 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.
The name of Alex Sutton has come up in conversations Southern United were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Lungelo Kunene 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Southern United has been clear about where Alex Nelson stands, which is more than many ever get.