Marked for Patrick Sulemana
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.07 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market18 Oct 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ashanti Gold is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Richard Boadu 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Ashanti Gold training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Isaac Hemans is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match16 Oct 2027
A 2‑0 win over Aduana Stars, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
A performance of 8.05 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Samuel Tetteh has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Ashanti Gold 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 38. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.99 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Isaac Hemans 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Pablo Ospina 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.
The terraces11 Oct 2027
At 17 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
The manager makes an example of Kelvin Andoh
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad11 Oct 2027
When it matters, Polo Nartey plays
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 58. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad20 Sep 2027
“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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Daniel Riascos is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market20 Sep 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ashanti Gold they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Richard Boadu 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad6 Sep 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Seth Paintsil
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ashanti Gold lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad6 Sep 2027
“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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
An order from above at Ashanti Gold: somebody has to go
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
Market6 Sep 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Hubert Gyau is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Richard Boadu 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.
Player ratings6 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Ashanti Gold
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.
Match4 Sep 2027
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Aug 2027
116 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ashanti Gold lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Joshua Baba 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.
Market16 Aug 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ashanti Gold is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Aug 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Seth Paintsil
52 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ashanti Gold lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Hubert Gyau is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Richard Boadu 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.