The words a physio says slowly. 114 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.
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings18 Sep 2028
Nana Nuhu, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.81
A mark of 7.81 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: David Wakaso. 3‑2 against BA All Stars, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 22 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 WAFA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abeiku Bukari 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.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Harrison Kudus 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.
A 4‑3 win over New Edubiase United, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
7 goals in one match, Harrison Kudus on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of WAFA and New Edubiase United.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abeiku Bukari 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. David Wakaso has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Marked 8.29 — 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.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Isaac Amoah 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.
22 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jeffrey Boakye provided it, and the 8.92 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Abeiku Bukari 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Gladson Adjei has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what WAFA 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 WAFA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abeiku Bukari 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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Gladson Adjei did not need any: 7.61, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
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.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Abeiku Bukari 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.
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.
Marked 8.15 — 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.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
David Wakaso was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.02. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
16 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Nana Nuhu did not need any: 7.93, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
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.
At 27 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abeiku Bukari 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.
Add another name to the list: ES Setif have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Harrison Kudus. The answer from WAFA has not changed — yet.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Rufai Mohammed is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Afriyie Sulemana is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Dennis Konney is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
At 28 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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Abeiku Bukari 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.
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.
Position 1, 72 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
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.
Harrison Kudus 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abeiku Bukari 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at WAFA, another week without a signature from Harrison Adjei.
A season average of 7.20 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. WAFA know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
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.
Add another name to the list: Asante Kotoko have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Nana Nuhu. The answer from WAFA has not changed — yet.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Abeiku Bukari 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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. WAFA will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Jonathan Boateng 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Abeiku Bukari 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.
30 appearances and 12 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Position 1, 72 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abeiku Bukari 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.
Add another name to the list: Great Olympics have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ernest Addo. The answer from WAFA has not changed — yet.
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.
Squad24 May 2027
Abeiku Bukari 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.
Position 1, 72 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abeiku Bukari 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.
1-4, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Abeiku Bukari 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 6.75, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Harrison Kudus 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abeiku Bukari 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.
Great Olympics will want this one forgotten quickly: 6‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. WAFA were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Position 1, 49 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Two goals and a mark of 9.45 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.25, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Gladson Adjei, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.91
A mark of 7.91 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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.
At 2 goals adrift this was a formality, and the formality lasted right up until it did not. WAFA found something the first half had given no notice of, and Hearts of Oak could not hold what they had.
Harrison Kudus had done his part in building a 3-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and BA All Stars were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Two goals and a mark of 8.41 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
11 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Nana Nuhu, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.22
A mark of 8.22 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and WAFA have had the benefit of it.