Marked for Thomas Williams
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match23 Jan 2027
14 matches without a win for Exeter City
The run now stands at 14, and the questions being asked around Exeter City are no longer polite ones.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Thomas Williams damages knee ligaments — 15 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
Market25 Jan 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Exeter City, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market25 Jan 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Exeter City they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom25 Jan 2027
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Jake Doyle-Hayes has agreed terms with Wrexham for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad25 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Exeter City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match23 Jan 2027
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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Ed Turns
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match16 Jan 2027
13 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Thomas Williams
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Exeter City lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match16 Jan 2027
Chastening afternoon for Exeter City
A 0‑3 beating by Stockport County was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Match18 Jan 2027
15 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market18 Jan 2027
Luton Town come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Exeter City did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Joe Whitworth 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 Jan 2027
Souza 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 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Johnly Yfeko
“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 Jan 2027
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match9 Jan 2027
12 matches without a win for Exeter City
The run now stands at 12, and the questions being asked around Exeter City are no longer polite ones.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Thomas Williams damages knee ligaments — 31 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Exeter City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Joaquín Escobar gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Joaquín Escobar has just signed for Exeter City, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Exeter City training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Souza 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 terraces11 Jan 2027
Exeter City supporters have found a favourite in Souza
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Souza has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Market11 Jan 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Exeter City, another week without a signature from Max Sanders.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Marked 7.39. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.