Frankie Phillips 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.
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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Skonto can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Skonto are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Spartaks in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Igors Stolcers is on it.
34 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Skonto lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Zalgiris keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Skonto know it.
Ryan Johnson 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.
Skonto asked and Spartak Trnava said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Frankie Phillips, and the manager let it.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at Skonto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christopher Nwaeze 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.
Sigma Olomouc have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
“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 Skonto, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kaspars Jagodinskis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Skonto the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Frankie Phillips and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Words at Skonto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ryan Johnson 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.
Skonto asked and Levski said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The name of Roberts Bulvitis has come up in conversations Skonto were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Nobody at Skonto will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Ryan Johnson 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Skonto know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Esomchi Kula was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Pavels Fertovs is on it.
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Skonto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The new man at Skonto has worked with Vladimirs Savalnieks before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Words at Skonto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alvis Stolcers 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.
107 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Skonto lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Liepaja have kept their man, and Skonto go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Skonto know 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 Skonto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Skonto have made the call to Egnatia Rrogozhinë. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Skonto, another week without a signature from Taofeek Otaniyi.
Linas Jankauskas 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 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.
Nobody at Skonto will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined 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 Skonto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Skonto asked and Jelgava said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Nobody at Skonto will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Skonto will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Linas Jankauskas 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.
Skonto asked and Torpedo Moscow said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Skonto, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at Skonto will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.