Marked for Benoît André
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Jul 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Rhian Brewster
146 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Crystal Palace lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad2 Jul 2035
478 appearances across 12 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Crystal Palace know what they have.
Market2 Jul 2035
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Crystal Palace, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market2 Jul 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Crystal Palace is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad2 Jul 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dean Henderson and Crystal Palace agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market2 Jul 2035
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad25 Jun 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kelsey Mooney
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Crystal Palace lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings25 Jun 2035
Successful dribbles: 34. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market25 Jun 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Crystal Palace can pretend not to have heard.
Market25 Jun 2035
The bid was some way short and Crystal Palace did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market25 Jun 2035
Cristian Uribe has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Crystal Palace they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad25 Jun 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crystal Palace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom25 Jun 2035
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Words at Crystal Palace training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Takehiro Tomiyasu 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.
Market25 Jun 2035
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Crystal Palace have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad18 Jun 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kelsey Mooney
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Crystal Palace lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market18 Jun 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Crystal Palace can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings18 Jun 2035
Age has not caught Rhian Brewster yet — 7.80
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.80 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad18 Jun 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crystal Palace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market18 Jun 2035
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tino Goremusandu will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Crystal Palace the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad18 Jun 2035
Matheus França 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.
Squad18 Jun 2035
The manager makes an example of Matheus França
“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.
Boardroom18 Jun 2035
141% of the income goes out in wages at Crystal Palace
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom4 Jun 2035
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Joseph Hawkins clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
Squad4 Jun 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kelsey Mooney
57 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Crystal Palace lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom4 Jun 2035
Crystal Palace have nobody left to take training
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
Boardroom4 Jun 2035
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
Market4 Jun 2035
Benoît André hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Crystal Palace can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom4 Jun 2035
The Crystal Palace board want somebody sold
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Squad4 Jun 2035
A move Gerrard Buabo 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. Gerrard Buabo is living that version at Crystal Palace, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad4 Jun 2035
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Eddie Nketiah commits to Crystal Palace for another 2 years.
Market4 Jun 2035
Only the photograph left for Timothy Grant
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Timothy Grant will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Crystal Palace the goodbyes have quietly begun.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 May 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kelsey Mooney
85 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Crystal Palace lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match5 May 2035
There were 87 minutes on the clock and Leeds United had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Crystal Palace did not stop to explain themselves.
Squad7 May 2035
Joe Emery breaks a bone — 22 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings7 May 2035
Rhian Brewster, 35, rolls back the years — 7.93
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.93 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market7 May 2035
Benoît André hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Crystal Palace can pretend not to have heard.
Market7 May 2035
Zac Hadi has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Crystal Palace they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad7 May 2035
Cheick Doucouré 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.
Match5 May 2035
Whatever happens, Crystal Palace do not lose
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Market7 May 2035
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Crystal Palace heard it as anything else.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings23 Apr 2035
Successful dribbles: 52. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad23 Apr 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kelsey Mooney
101 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Crystal Palace lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad23 Apr 2035
Joe Emery breaks a bone — 36 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings23 Apr 2035
Rhian Brewster, 35, rolls back the years — 7.93
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.93 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market23 Apr 2035
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Crystal Palace, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad23 Apr 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crystal Palace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market23 Apr 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Crystal Palace is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad23 Apr 2035
“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.
Boardroom23 Apr 2035
Wages eat 118% of everything Crystal Palace earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad9 Apr 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kelsey Mooney
115 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Crystal Palace lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad9 Apr 2035
A fracture rules Joe Emery out for 51 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Crystal Palace will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings9 Apr 2035
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.58, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings9 Apr 2035
Age has not caught Rhian Brewster yet — 8.58
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.58 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market9 Apr 2035
“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.
Squad9 Apr 2035
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Cheick Doucouré commits to Crystal Palace for another 2 years.
Market9 Apr 2035
Zac Hadi has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Crystal Palace they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad9 Apr 2035
Cheick Doucouré 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 ratings9 Apr 2035
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings12 Mar 2035
Successful dribbles: 62. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad12 Mar 2035
Kelsey Mooney damages knee ligaments — 144 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 144 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.
Squad12 Mar 2035
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 26 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match12 Mar 2035
Every point is an argument now for Crystal Palace
Position 23 and 23 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market12 Mar 2035
Benoît André hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Crystal Palace can pretend not to have heard.
Squad12 Mar 2035
Benoît André: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Crystal Palace have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad12 Mar 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crystal Palace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market12 Mar 2035
Only the photograph left for Zac Hadi
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Zac Hadi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Crystal Palace the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match10 Mar 2035
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Feb 2035
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 54 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match12 Feb 2035
Every point is an argument now for Crystal Palace
Position 24 and 19 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Player ratings12 Feb 2035
Successful dribbles: 32. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match10 Feb 2035
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Crystal Palace are no longer polite ones.
Market12 Feb 2035
“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.
Squad12 Feb 2035
41 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad12 Feb 2035
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Crystal Palace may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad12 Feb 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crystal Palace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market12 Feb 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Crystal Palace is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Jan 2035
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Crystal Palace will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings15 Jan 2035
Successful dribbles: 40. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match15 Jan 2035
Position 22, 17 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad15 Jan 2035
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Crystal Palace may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market15 Jan 2035
“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.
Squad15 Jan 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crystal Palace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match13 Jan 2035
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Jesurun Rak-Sakyi 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
Crisis
Squad1 Jan 2035
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 97 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market1 Jan 2035
“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.
Squad1 Jan 2035
Takehiro Tomiyasu 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 Jan 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Crystal Palace is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market1 Jan 2035
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad1 Jan 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Eddie Nketiah, and the manager let it.
Squad1 Jan 2035
Words at Crystal Palace training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matheus França 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.
Boardroom1 Jan 2035
124% of the income goes out in wages at Crystal Palace
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Player ratings1 Jan 2035
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.67 on the card, and the Crystal Palace support went home talking about one name.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings15 May 2034
Successful dribbles: 48. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad15 May 2034
Benoît André: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Crystal Palace have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market15 May 2034
Mofe Jemide has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Crystal Palace they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad15 May 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crystal Palace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match13 May 2034
Whatever happens, Crystal Palace do not lose
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad15 May 2034
Amankwah Forson 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
Player ratings2 Jan 2034
Successful dribbles: 40. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match31 Dec 2033
9 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.
Match31 Dec 2033
7 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Market2 Jan 2034
Mofe Jemide hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Crystal Palace can pretend not to have heard.
Market2 Jan 2034
Corinthians come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Crystal Palace did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market2 Jan 2034
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Crystal Palace they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad2 Jan 2034
Cheick Doucouré 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.
Market2 Jan 2034
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad2 Jan 2034
Takehiro Tomiyasu 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
Match17 Dec 2033
7 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.
Squad19 Dec 2033
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Crystal Palace may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match17 Dec 2033
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad19 Dec 2033
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crystal Palace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market19 Dec 2033
Add another name to the list: Corinthians have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Benoît André. The answer from Crystal Palace has not changed — yet.
Squad19 Dec 2033
Amankwah Forson 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.
Player ratings19 Dec 2033
The afternoon belonged to Yeremy Pino
A mark of 7.58, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad19 Dec 2033
Eddie Nketiah knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Crystal Palace, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market19 Dec 2033
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Takehiro Tomiyasu’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings24 Oct 2033
Successful dribbles: 47. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Oct 2033
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crystal Palace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match22 Oct 2033
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Crystal Palace are no longer polite ones.
Market24 Oct 2033
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nicolò Spinelli will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Crystal Palace the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match22 Oct 2033
0‑2 to West Bromwich Albion, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad24 Oct 2033
Words at Crystal Palace training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ross Stewart 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.
Squad24 Oct 2033
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Benoît André, and the manager let it.
Squad24 Oct 2033
Jesurun Rak-Sakyi has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Crystal Palace 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.
Market24 Oct 2033
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Takehiro Tomiyasu’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.