Marked for
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom7 Jun 2027
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Market7 Jun 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Liberty Professionals can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout7 Jun 2027
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Squad7 Jun 2027
Kwame Wakaso 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.
Market7 Jun 2027
Berekum Chelsea pay $4.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
The dugout7 Jun 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
14 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Market7 Jun 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Oscar Gqeke slips down the pecking order
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Oscar Gqeke is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces24 May 2027
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Boardroom24 May 2027
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Match24 May 2027
Position 15 and 14 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Squad24 May 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 60 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market24 May 2027
Jeffrey Ofori 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 Liberty Professionals can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Liberty Professionals training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwame Wakaso 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.
Squad24 May 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 Liberty Professionals this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout24 May 2027
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Liberty Professionals. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The dugout24 May 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Liberty Professionals, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match3 Apr 2027
27 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Liberty Professionals has to find a result from somewhere.
Boardroom5 Apr 2027
Kwame Boateng has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Liberty Professionals can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Market5 Apr 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 Liberty Professionals, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match3 Apr 2027
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Kwame Wakaso 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.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
The manager makes an example of Oscar Gqeke
“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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Liberty Professionals will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Kwame Boateng chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at Liberty Professionals training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. a squad player 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Gladson Partey out for 29 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Liberty Professionals will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Francis Acquah: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Liberty Professionals have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad12 Oct 2026
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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Mohammed Fatau 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
93 days out for Gladson Partey after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Liberty Professionals will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market10 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Liberty Professionals did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Kwame Wakaso 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohammed Fatau was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bendel Insurance have kept their man, and Liberty Professionals go back to a list with one name crossed off it.