The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Baba Inusah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. WAFA lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Baba Inusah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Jayson Nettey 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 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.
The deal with Asante Kotoko is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Kwadwo Afful 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 have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one WAFA will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at WAFA. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Ambitious players need ambitious projects. Draw your own conclusions.” Edmund Annan’s representative said it with a smile, and made sure everyone wrote it down.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around WAFA they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Francis Annan trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A manager forgives a bad Saturday far more readily than a bad Tuesday, because one of them he can explain and the other one he chose. The reports this week have not been good.
35 points in position 12: too many to go down, too few to go anywhere. The honest description of a season like this is a shrug, and the supporters have already given it.
Full confidence, expressed in the dull, deliberate language boards reserve for when they mean it. The window that follows will show whether the words came with money attached.
Squad28 May 2029
Baba Mensah is training like a man with a point to make
Nobody has promised him anything and he has not asked. The coaching staff have noticed, which at this stage of a season is the only thing that matters.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 16 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Beaten 2‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Baba Inusah 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.
The dugout19 Mar 2029
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Felix Asante to a room that had heard them before.
Lawrence Osei 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.