“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cardiff City can pretend not to have heard.
Ra'ees Bangura-Williams 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.
Squad1 Dec 2031
Thierno Barry 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Norwich City.
The chase for Marezi ended with $14.3M changing hands and Portsmouth out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Successful dribbles: 29. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Cardiff City they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Ra'ees Bangura-Williams 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.
Cardiff City have gone to Burnley with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Ipswich Town go through and Cardiff City go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cardiff City is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ra'ees Bangura-Williams was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.