Marked for Patrick Inusah
From our football correspondent
Steady
The terraces18 Oct 2027
The mood at Wa All Stars has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Age has not caught Felix Wakaso yet — 8.09
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.09 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market18 Oct 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Wa All Stars is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Mohamed Yassine Abouzra 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.
Match16 Oct 2027
It finished 3‑2, and it was Felix Wakaso’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Wa All Stars.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youssef El Omari 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.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
A performance of 8.96 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad18 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Youssef El Omari, and the manager let it.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces20 Sep 2027
The mood at Wa All Stars has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Match18 Sep 2027
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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Kilian Patrick is a better footballer than he was
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.
Market20 Sep 2027
Only the photograph left for Patrick Inusah
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Patrick Inusah will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Wa All Stars the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad20 Sep 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ernest Bukari commits to Wa All Stars for another 3 years.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Mohamed Yassine Abouzra 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Zolani Nkombelo has improved at 33, which nobody expected
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.
Match18 Sep 2027
4 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad13 Sep 2027
Joseph Mensah is a better footballer than he was
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.
Match11 Sep 2027
4 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.
Squad13 Sep 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 Wa All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Sep 2027
At 29 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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Youssef El Omari 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.
Match11 Sep 2027
1‑2 to Heart of Lions, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market13 Sep 2027
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Wa All Stars will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
Marked 5.15, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market30 Aug 2027
Abbey Benson 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 Wa All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Yussif Moro Owusu is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad30 Aug 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 Wa All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Aug 2027
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zolani Nkombelo 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
Crisis
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A chastening introduction for Yussif Moro Owusu — 5.74
It is a hard way to meet a crowd. Marked 5.74 on the day he was handed the shirt, and the important thing now is what the next one looks like.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Joseph Mensah is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wa All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Maximiliano Planté 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Ernest Bukari scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Hasaacas, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 Wa All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from Inter Allies for Albert Afful 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wa All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Wa All Stars did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Mohamed Yassine Abouzra 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Planté 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ernest Djiku gets it from the manager
“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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The name of David Baba has come up in conversations Wa All Stars were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad17 Aug 2026
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Wa All Stars will not keep him by pretending otherwise.