The Ethnikos Achnas Herald
Squad23 Apr 2029
29 days out for Ioakeim Toubas after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ethnikos Achnas will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad23 Apr 2029
Ricardinho in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ethnikos Achnas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom23 Apr 2029
Belts tighten at Ethnikos Achnas
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Squad23 Apr 2029
A row about effort at Ethnikos Achnas
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Neneco was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom23 Apr 2029
Wages eat 101% of everything Ethnikos Achnas earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The dugout23 Apr 2029
Christian Nnoruka Chinemerem knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Christian Nnoruka Chinemerem trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market23 Apr 2029
Still no signature from Ricardinho
3 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Ethnikos Achnas could get for him.
Market23 Apr 2029
The Emmanuel Lomotey story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Emmanuel Lomotey signs something — a contract at Ethnikos Achnas or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout23 Apr 2029
Michalis Papastylianou has been promised minutes
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Michalis Papastylianou has written the date down.
In brief
- Squad The selectors could not leave Nicholas Pittas out
- The dugout The manager plants his flag on Marcos León
- Match Mid-table, and Ethnikos Achnas know it