Marked for Steven Wright
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad4 Sep 2028
Alfie Rice breaks a bone — 76 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 76 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings4 Sep 2028
Tyler Silsby, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.85
A mark of 7.85 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad4 Sep 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Thomas Ince commits to Notts County for another 2 years.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Thomas Ince in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Notts County this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Steven Wright is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The terraces4 Sep 2028
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.
Match2 Sep 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tyler Silsby. 1‑0 against Blackpool, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Market4 Sep 2028
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Scott Robertson may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings26 Jun 2028
Successful dribbles: 53. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Bryn Morris damages knee ligaments — 33 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
Market26 Jun 2028
The chase for Dale Taylor ended with $3.3M changing hands and Blackpool out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad26 Jun 2028
A move Bryn Morris would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Bryn Morris is living that version at Notts County, and it tends to show in the first month.
Match24 Jun 2028
The unbeaten run reaches 8. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match24 Jun 2028
The run at home goes on for Notts County
11 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Kelle Roos 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 terraces26 Jun 2028
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Dale Taylor from Blackpool for $3.3M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Ezra Mayers 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces1 Mar 2027
The mood at Burnley 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.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match27 Feb 2027
6 matches without a win for Burnley
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Burnley are no longer polite ones.
Match27 Feb 2027
The goals have deserted Burnley
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Burnley can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Filip Jörgensen 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.
Market1 Mar 2027
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Burnley training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Quilindschy Hartman 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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lesley Ugochukwu, and the manager let it.
Squad1 Mar 2027
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Burnley pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market1 Feb 2027
Loum Tchaouna wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Burnley hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Filip Jörgensen 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.
Market1 Feb 2027
Ashley Barnes has left for Fulham in a $670.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Burnley training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Quilindschy Hartman 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.
Loan watch1 Feb 2027
“I did not go to Accrington Stanley to sit and watch. I want to come back to Burnley and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 22 matches say the rest.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Pedro Augusto, and the manager let it.
Squad1 Feb 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.
The terraces1 Feb 2027
Everybody has an opinion about Enes Ünal
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Accrington Stanley this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Accrington Stanley training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Micah Hamilton 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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.84 on the card, and the Accrington Stanley support went home talking about one name.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Liam Coyle knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Liam Coyle trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Richard Edwards
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Burnley lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Marcus Edwards 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.
Market28 Dec 2026
Burnley may not be able to give Zeki Amdouni what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Zeki Amdouni wants continental football; whether Burnley can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Quilindschy Hartman 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.
Match26 Dec 2026
The goals have deserted Burnley
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Burnley can tell you which week it ends in.