Marked for Nasser Al-Ghamdi
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Aug 2027
19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al-Njoom lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Abdulmajeed Ayash is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad9 Aug 2027
A row about effort at Al-Njoom
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Robin Kelder was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mousa Assiri and Al-Njoom agree another 2 years.
Market9 Aug 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Prince Ibara’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Aug 2027
Nasser Al-Ghamdi damages knee ligaments — 26 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Talal Al-Shehri has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market2 Aug 2027
“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.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
The Al-Njoom board call everybody in
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Al-Njoom training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Robin Kelder 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Mousa Assiri commits to Al-Njoom for another 2 years.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words exchanged at Al-Njoom
Essam Bahri and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
The manager's exit leaves Montassar Toumi exposed
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Montassar Toumi is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
Al-Njoom pull $165.5K back off the table
The money that was there in the summer is not there now. Nobody upstairs calls this a change of ambition, and everybody downstairs reads it as one.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Jul 2027
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al-Njoom lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market26 Jul 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 Al-Njoom, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market26 Jul 2027
The name of Asanele Shibe has come up in conversations Al-Njoom were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Words at Al-Njoom training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammed Attiyah 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 dugout26 Jul 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tshepiso Mahlangu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout26 Jul 2027
The manager makes an example of Essam Bahri
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match9 Sep 2026
The cup run ends for Al-Njoom
0‑1 against Al-Nassr, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad14 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al-Njoom this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match12 Sep 2026
1‑3 to Al-Orobah, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Al-Njoom
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Khaled Al-Rammah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market14 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Nasser Al-Ghamdi has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
19 new faces, and Al-Njoom are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑3, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Essa Al-Saeed dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.