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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Warri Wolves this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
135 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Warri Wolves lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Michael Osimhen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Warri Wolves the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Warri Wolves this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The medical room confirms 43 days on the sidelines for Chinedu Olayinka, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad10 Oct 2033
Words at Warri Wolves training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Okiemute Akporiaye 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Oghenekaro Obafemi and Warri Wolves agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
6 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.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Warri Wolves can tell you which week it ends in.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Michael Osimhen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Warri Wolves the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Warri Wolves this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ekene Olisema signs something — a contract at Warri Wolves or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Rivers United left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad16 May 2033
Words at Warri Wolves training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Okiemute Akporiaye 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.
Anthony Ekong 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The words a physio says slowly. 105 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Warri Wolves is pretending he will be back in the shirt.