Ryan Fraser 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 phone has started ringing about Will McKay again, and this time the name on the line is Ba. Macarthur FC are listening politely and promising nothing.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spartak 1918 have kept their man, and Macarthur FC go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Macarthur FC can pretend not to have heard.
Macarthur FC had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Botev Vratsa, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Ryan Fraser 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Western Sydney Wanderers have kept their man, and Macarthur FC go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Spartak 1918 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Peter Lawrence and Macarthur FC agree another 3 years.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Peter Lawrence trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Gabriel Cléùr has just signed for Macarthur FC, and for once the answer mattered.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Hajduk Split keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Ryan Fraser 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Peter Lawrence has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Blake Crawford has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Max Wilson 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Joel Knight is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Macarthur FC have made the call to Botev Vratsa. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.