Marked for Benjamin Jackson
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad27 Dec 2032
19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Newport County lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match21 Dec 2032
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑1 against Bradford City, and it could have been more.
Player ratings27 Dec 2032
A brace, and Santino Duarte takes the afternoon — 8.17
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Santino Duarte provided it, and the 8.17 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad27 Dec 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Newport County this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout27 Dec 2032
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jack Barrett, and the manager let it.
Player ratings27 Dec 2032
Marked 8.43 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings27 Dec 2032
Marked 8.39 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad27 Dec 2032
Words at Newport County training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kacper Krajewski 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad20 Dec 2032
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Newport County lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market20 Dec 2032
“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.
Match18 Dec 2032
No end in sight to Newport County's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Newport County has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad20 Dec 2032
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Santino Duarte was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match18 Dec 2032
Cambridge United left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings20 Dec 2032
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
Squad20 Dec 2032
Jordi Tur and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout20 Dec 2032
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Stéphane Roche left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout20 Dec 2032
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 Dec 2032
A knee injury of the worst kind for Benjamin Jackson
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Newport County lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market13 Dec 2032
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Newport County can pretend not to have heard.
Market13 Dec 2032
Jonathan Hall has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Newport County they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad13 Dec 2032
Joshua Toluwaloju and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad13 Dec 2032
Santino Duarte 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 ratings13 Dec 2032
Successful dribbles: 17. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout13 Dec 2032
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Stéphane Roche chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Match11 Dec 2032
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Cheltenham Town? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Market13 Dec 2032
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Ernesto Pontoriero’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.