Marked for Nicholas Bailey
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom31 Jan 2033
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Wrexham
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Match31 Jan 2033
Wrexham sink to position 24
18 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad31 Jan 2033
A knee injury of the worst kind for Nicholas Bailey
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wrexham lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout31 Jan 2033
Abdul Yakubu: 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.” Wrexham have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Transfer targets31 Jan 2033
No thanks: Nilson Angulo rejects the move
Wrexham had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Everton, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad31 Jan 2033
A falling-out at Wrexham
Jacob Ross and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 Jan 2033
Issa Kaboré 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.
Transfer targets31 Jan 2033
Wrexham asked and Stoke City said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match29 Jan 2033
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces24 Jan 2033
Anger at Wrexham spills outside the ground
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.
Squad24 Jan 2033
A knee injury of the worst kind for Nicholas Bailey
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wrexham lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match22 Jan 2033
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Leeds United, and it could have been more.
Player ratings24 Jan 2033
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.65, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings24 Jan 2033
Jacob Ross, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.12
A mark of 8.12 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market24 Jan 2033
“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 Wrexham, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout24 Jan 2033
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Wrexham may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market24 Jan 2033
Only the photograph left for Ceiran Loney
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ceiran Loney will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Wrexham the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Transfer targets24 Jan 2033
The deal with Manchester City is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Jan 2033
31 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Wrexham lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market17 Jan 2033
Ramiro López 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 Wrexham can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets17 Jan 2033
Everything agreed with Everton, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad17 Jan 2033
Jacob Ross 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 Jan 2033
A row about effort at Wrexham
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nathan Broadhead was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets17 Jan 2033
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Stevenage have kept their man, and Wrexham go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match15 Jan 2033
It finished 1‑0, and it was Millar Matthews-Lewis’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Wrexham.
Match11 Jan 2033
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad17 Jan 2033
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.