Marked for Afriyie Schlupp
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad20 Dec 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Afriyie Schlupp
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Heart of Lions lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market20 Dec 2027
Mahmoud Labib 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 Heart of Lions can pretend not to have heard.
Squad20 Dec 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 Heart of Lions this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad13 Dec 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Afriyie Schlupp
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Heart of Lions lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Michael Noumon, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.05
A mark of 8.05 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Lawrence Osei 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.
Match11 Dec 2027
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Ebenezer Abban 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad6 Dec 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Afriyie Schlupp
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Heart of Lions lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match4 Dec 2027
0‑3 against Medeama, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Market6 Dec 2027
Yaw Danso puts it in writing
“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 Heart of Lions, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad6 Dec 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Michael Noumon commits to Heart of Lions for another 4 years.
Squad6 Dec 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 Heart of Lions this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Mahmoud Labib 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad29 Nov 2027
Afriyie Schlupp damages knee ligaments — 37 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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 ratings29 Nov 2027
No sign of nerves from Michael Noumon at 21 — 7.98
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Michael Noumon did not need any: 7.98, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Afeez Bankole 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.
Match27 Nov 2027
WAFA made Heart of Lions work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Ebenezer Abban 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.
Match27 Nov 2027
Heart of Lions make home a hard place to visit
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Kwame Nuhu gets it from the manager
“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.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.47, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Marked 8.17 — 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad22 Nov 2027
Afriyie Schlupp damages knee ligaments — 44 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 44 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.
Match20 Nov 2027
Beaten 0‑4 by Hearts of Oak, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad22 Nov 2027
A fracture rules Paul Agyei out for 20 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Heart of Lions will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market22 Nov 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 Heart of Lions, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad22 Nov 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 Heart of Lions this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Words at Heart of Lions training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ebenezer Abban 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.