Umar Obi

Goalkeeper - Bendel Insurance
23 Apr 2034
Sunday
Process
Overview Personal Contract News 2 Transfers Relations Events 96 Awards Matches History

Marked for Umar Obi

377 Edition

The Bendel Insurance Post

17 Oct 2033
From our football correspondent Uneasy

The terraces17 Oct 2033

The mood at Bendel Insurance has turned into something else

Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.

Market17 Oct 2033

Isaac Ihenacho asks to leave Bendel Insurance

“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.

Squad17 Oct 2033

Words exchanged at Bendel Insurance

Yusuf Mannase 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.

Market17 Oct 2033

Isaac Ihenacho steps up from the Bendel Insurance academy

There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Isaac Ihenacho 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.

Market17 Oct 2033

One of our own: Michael Omeruo joins the Bendel Insurance first team

Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Michael Omeruo is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.

Market17 Oct 2033

One of our own: Shehu Osayi-Samuel joins the Bendel Insurance first team

Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Shehu Osayi-Samuel is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.

Squad17 Oct 2033

Michael Akinola 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 dugout17 Oct 2033

Emmanuel Akpan has become a man the manager trusts

Nobody at Bendel Insurance 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 dugout17 Oct 2033

No hiding place for Umar Obi

“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Umar Obi, and the manager let it.

In brief

Back issues
368 Edition

The Bendel Insurance Post

15 Aug 2033
From our football correspondent Crisis

Squad15 Aug 2033

Emmanuel Nwokeji damages knee ligaments — 26 days out

The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.

Market15 Aug 2033

Ikorodu City watching Uche Collins

The interest is real enough to have reached print. Bendel Insurance have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.

Match13 Aug 2033

The wait goes on for Bendel Insurance

5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.

Market15 Aug 2033

Ifeanyi Olayinka has one foot out of the door

Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bendel Insurance they have already started talking about him in the past tense.

The dugout15 Aug 2033

Umar Obi says Bendel Insurance went back on their word

“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.

The dugout15 Aug 2033

Ibrahim Alhassan frozen out at Bendel Insurance

This is not rotation. Ibrahim Alhassan has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Bendel Insurance is pretending otherwise.

Transfer targets15 Aug 2033

Bendel Insurance rebuffed over Oladimeji Dada

Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. El-Kanemi Warriors have kept their man, and Bendel Insurance go back to a list with one name crossed off it.

Match13 Aug 2033

Bendel Insurance leaking at the back

5 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.

Squad15 Aug 2033

Tempers go at Bendel Insurance

Yusuf Mannase 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.

In brief