Marked for Bas Simons
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Jul 2038
A fracture rules Justin Devenny out for 90 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Crystal Palace will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market12 Jul 2038
Fran Kasalo 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 Crystal Palace can pretend not to have heard.
Squad12 Jul 2038
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crystal Palace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market12 Jul 2038
Only the photograph left for Matthew Murphy
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Matthew Murphy will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Crystal Palace the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom12 Jul 2038
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad12 Jul 2038
Bas Simons gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Bas Simons has just signed for Crystal Palace, and for once the answer mattered.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces16 Mar 2037
Anger at Arda 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.
Squad16 Mar 2037
“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.
Squad16 Mar 2037
Badri Gogoberishvili 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.
Squad16 Mar 2037
Tempers go at Arda
Kyriakos Tounousidis 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.
Market16 Mar 2037
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Daniel Ambartsumyan signs something — a contract at Arda or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Squad16 Mar 2037
A new face in his position, and Lachezar Kotev suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Arda have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Feb 2037
Words at Arda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Badri Gogoberishvili 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.
Squad23 Feb 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Feb 2037
“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.
In brief
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Market
The Lachezar Kotev story refuses to die
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Squad
Bas Simons knocks on the manager's door
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Boardroom
The Arda production line keeps running
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Jan 2037
A knee injury of the worst kind for Stoycho Petrov
41 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Arda lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match24 Jan 2037
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad26 Jan 2037
Defences have started doubling up on Wilson Samaké
24 goals and a season average of 7.31 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings26 Jan 2037
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.01 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad26 Jan 2037
18 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad26 Jan 2037
Badri Gogoberishvili 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.
Player ratings26 Jan 2037
A defender's afternoon for Dean Nestorov
Defensive actions: 20. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings26 Jan 2037
A performance of 8.30 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Market26 Jan 2037
The name of Lachezar Kotev keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Arda say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings29 Dec 2036
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.99 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad29 Dec 2036
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad29 Dec 2036
Defences have started doubling up on Wilson Samaké
20 goals and a season average of 7.25 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad29 Dec 2036
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Dec 2036
Badri Gogoberishvili 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 Dec 2036
It finished 3‑2, and it was Badri Gogoberishvili’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Arda.
Player ratings29 Dec 2036
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.45, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings29 Dec 2036
Wilson Samaké was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Market29 Dec 2036
The name of Lachezar Kotev keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Arda say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Nov 2036
Viacheslav Velev damages knee ligaments — 38 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 38 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.
Match10 Nov 2036
Arda are in real trouble now
Position 16, 11 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad10 Nov 2036
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad10 Nov 2036
Tempers go at Arda
Atanas Petkov 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.
Squad10 Nov 2036
Words at Arda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Badri Gogoberishvili 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 ratings10 Nov 2036
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.27, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match8 Nov 2036
A 1‑1 draw with Slavia Sofia leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Market10 Nov 2036
The name of Viacheslav Velev keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Arda say nothing, which says plenty.
Player ratings10 Nov 2036
5.77 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
Crisis
Squad3 Nov 2036
Viacheslav Velev damages knee ligaments — 45 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 45 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.
Boardroom3 Nov 2036
the manager has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Arda can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Boardroom3 Nov 2036
The Arda 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.
Match1 Nov 2036
Arda leaking at the back
9 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Player ratings3 Nov 2036
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.65 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market3 Nov 2036
“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 Arda, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match1 Nov 2036
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Arda and Cherno More in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad3 Nov 2036
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.