Marked for Patrick Pedersen
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Jun 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Patrick Pedersen
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. IK Start lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market5 Jun 2028
“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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Jacob Pryts 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
“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.
Match3 Jun 2028
A 1‑0 win over Mjondalen, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at IK Start training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Håkon Lorentzen 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.
Player ratings5 Jun 2028
A performance of 8.12 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The terraces5 Jun 2028
Everybody has an opinion about Eirik Schulze
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Player ratings5 Jun 2028
12 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match27 May 2028
15 matches without a win for IK Start
The run now stands at 15, and the questions being asked around IK Start are no longer polite ones.
Squad29 May 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Patrick Pedersen
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. IK Start lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad29 May 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad29 May 2028
Ole Enersen 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.
Squad29 May 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings29 May 2028
Ninety minutes of Steve Mvoué at his very best
Marked 8.19. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at IK Start.
Match27 May 2028
Honours even between IK Start and Odd
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Player ratings29 May 2028
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings29 May 2028
5.66 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match20 May 2028
No end in sight to IK Start's wait for a win
14 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at IK Start has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad22 May 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Patrick Pedersen
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. IK Start lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market22 May 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around IK Start they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad22 May 2028
Eirik Schulze 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.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at IK Start training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ole Enersen 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.
Squad22 May 2028
Steve Mvoué 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 ratings22 May 2028
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match20 May 2028
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Player ratings22 May 2028
4.35. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.