The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
Player ratings12 Feb 2029
A brace, and Omar Marmoush takes the afternoon — 10.00
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Omar Marmoush provided it, and the 10.00 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Omar Marmoush 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.
“I did not go to Crystal Palace to sit and watch. I want to come back to Manchester City and fight for my place.” 4 appearances in 24 matches say the rest.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsPhil Foden was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Manchester City they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Rúben Dias 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jonathan Williams is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tijjani Reijnders 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.
Marked 8.78 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Manchester City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4 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.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nico González 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jonathan Williams and Manchester City agree another 4 years.
Shots: 11. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Manchester City will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Middlesbrough the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Manchester City will enjoy reviewing.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Manchester City 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 Manchester City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 17 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Manchester City is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Manchester City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.