Marked for Daniel Petit
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Jul 2035
Gustavo Sá 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 Wrexham this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market9 Jul 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Wrexham is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Daniel Petit is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Danny Imray 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.
Squad9 Jul 2035
The manager makes an example of Lewis O'Brien
“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.
Market9 Jul 2035
Burnley are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Wrexham will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad25 Jun 2035
Gustavo Sá 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 Wrexham this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings25 Jun 2035
Nobody could get near Gustavo Sá
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Danny Imray 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.
Squad25 Jun 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” Daniel Petit and Wrexham agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings25 Jun 2035
A mark of 7.66, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad25 Jun 2035
“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.
Market25 Jun 2035
Ipswich Town are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Wrexham will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Market25 Jun 2035
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jacques Ekomié signs something — a contract at Wrexham or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Match23 Jun 2035
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Birmingham defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match20 Sep 2034
Wrexham through in the cup
A 1‑0 win over Newport County, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings25 Sep 2034
Two goals and a mark of 8.31 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings25 Sep 2034
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.96 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad25 Sep 2034
Gustavo Sá 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 Wrexham this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Sep 2034
Danny Imray 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.
Match23 Sep 2034
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Gustavo Sá. 2‑0 against Middlesbrough, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings25 Sep 2034
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.16, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings25 Sep 2034
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.10, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad25 Sep 2034
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Jul 2034
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Wrexham may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad17 Jul 2034
Gustavo Sá 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 Wrexham this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Jul 2034
Daniel Petit is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.