Marked for David Patterson
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Jay O'Shea and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match7 Nov 2026
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Match7 Nov 2026
Adelaide United left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Shane Miller to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Noah Maieroni dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Nov 2026
He goes off to be somebody else’s player for a fortnight. Brisbane Roar lose him for the window and would like him returned in the condition he left.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match24 Oct 2026
0‑5 to Macarthur FC, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Squad26 Oct 2026
At 14 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Boardroom26 Oct 2026
1 academy players handed senior numbers at Brisbane Roar
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jordan Lauton commits to Brisbane Roar for another 3 years.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Michael Ruhs 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Dimitris Valkanis 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.
Market26 Oct 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Scott Jones is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Boardroom26 Oct 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Shane Miller after 0‑5, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
Jordan Lauton is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Cameron Peupion 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Joel King has improved at 25, 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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Brisbane Roar can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Sebit Ngor 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Brisbane Roar have gone to Central Coast Mariners with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Michael Ruhs 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad24 Aug 2026
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Brisbane Roar are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Sebit Ngor and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market17 Aug 2026
Ben Warland has left for Melbourne City in a $130.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Michael Ruhs 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market17 Aug 2026
“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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Brisbane Roar have made the call to Köln. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
A loan move for Yuto Ozeki is in the works
Brisbane Roar have made the call to Kawasaki Frontale. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A club from his own country has asked the question, and he has never pretended he did not want to be asked. Brisbane Roar have a conversation ahead of them that they will not win with money.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
Gabriel Cléùr gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Gabriel Cléùr has just signed for Brisbane Roar, and for once the answer mattered.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Brisbane Roar have done the hard part with ADO Den Haag, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Gabriel Cléùr 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Sebit Ngor 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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Panathinaikos have kept their man, and Brisbane Roar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Alex Jones has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.