“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Inter Allies can pretend not to have heard.
Successful dribbles: 22. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout1 Jan 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 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Daniel Boateng to a room that had heard them before.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A brace, and David Andrew takes the afternoon — 8.84
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. David Andrew provided it, and the 8.84 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
David Andrew 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.
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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑1, Daniel Boateng could afford to be generous.
Nobody at Inter Allies 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Inter Allies, and it is not being withdrawn.
David Andrew 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.
4 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.
David Andrew 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.
8.25. 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.
Marked 8.04 — 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.
Marked 8.04 — 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Godspower Akekoromowei has come out of that comparison in the side, and Inter Allies have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑1, Daniel Boateng could afford to be generous.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.78 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 21 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Daniel Boateng on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
In brief
The dugoutPrecious Agwu is still being punished for one mistake
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
Ékené Awazie 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.