“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 The request is on a desk at Manchester City, and it is not being withdrawn.
Jérémy Doku 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.
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.
Add another name to the list: Standard Liege have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Yves Bissouma. The answer from Manchester City has not changed — yet.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Michael Richardson and Manchester City agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 39 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
27 goals in 27 games at Reading — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Manchester City updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 30 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Phil Foden 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rodolfo Gallardo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Manchester City the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Manchester City can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tosin Adarabioyo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Manchester City the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Jérémy Doku 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.
Shots: 12. 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
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.
Jérémy Doku 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.
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.
The chase for Raul Kumar ended with $38.9M changing hands and Istra 1961 out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The name of Kaoru Mitoma has come up in conversations Manchester City were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Jérémy Doku 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nico González trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A new partner, a signature and a photograph nobody will remember. It funds a fortnight of wages, which is more than most headlines on this page can say for themselves.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Manchester City, another week without a signature from Rayan Aït-Nouri.