Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 83 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Watford have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Watford this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Nov 2035
Anton Stach 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Nathan Baxter 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.
Squad17 Sep 2035
Kwadwo Baah 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Marc Bola signs something — a contract at Watford or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 22 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 88 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Newcastle United can pretend not to have heard.
Nick Woltemade 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.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Newcastle United is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
In brief
SquadWords at Newcastle United training over how hard people work
The terracesThe stands have heard the Lewis Hall talk too
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Watford this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Jun 2034
Words at Watford training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwadwo Baah 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.
Add another name to the list: Cheltenham Town have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Zavier Massiah-Edwards. The answer from Watford has not changed — yet.