Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Shanghai Shenhua will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Zhu Chenjie 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.
The new man at Shanghai Shenhua has worked with Wang Hao before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Nobody at Shanghai Shenhua will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Squad10 Oct 2033
An Zhicheng 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is An Zhicheng’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Shanghai Shenhua needing him to play as if none of it matters.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Shanghai Shenhua will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Shanghai Shenhua have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. An Zhicheng will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Shanghai Shenhua the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shanghai Shenhua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sun Zhen after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Shanghai Shenhua will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Zhu Chenjie 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Sun Zhen on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. An Zhicheng 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.