Marked for Patrick Marshall
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Jan 2035
A fracture rules Patrick Marshall out for 18 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Macarthur FC will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market15 Jan 2035
The bid was some way short and Macarthur FC did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Tom Ferguson: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Macarthur FC have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Kosta Grozos 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 Macarthur FC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match13 Jan 2035
Akol Akon scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to Perth Glory, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom8 Jan 2035
Interim Coach has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Macarthur FC can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Squad8 Jan 2035
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom8 Jan 2035
The Macarthur FC 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.
Player ratings8 Jan 2035
Callum Talbot, 33, rolls back the years — 7.95
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.95 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market8 Jan 2035
Auckland FC come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Macarthur FC did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings8 Jan 2035
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad8 Jan 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” Kosta Grozos and Macarthur FC agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 Jan 2035
Kosta Grozos 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 Macarthur FC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match30 Dec 2034
Beaten 0‑3 by Melbourne Victory, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad1 Jan 2035
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market1 Jan 2035
“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 Macarthur FC, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad1 Jan 2035
Kosta Grozos 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.
Player ratings1 Jan 2035
Jing Reec runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad1 Jan 2035
The manager makes an example of Liam Rose
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Oct 2034
Kosta Grozos 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.
Player ratings23 Oct 2034
Jing Reec runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom23 Oct 2034
14 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Market23 Oct 2034
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Brett Harper has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market23 Oct 2034
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Luke Bennett has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market23 Oct 2034
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Patrick Marshall has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market23 Oct 2034
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Bryce Grant is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Player ratings23 Oct 2034
A mark of 7.76, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad23 Oct 2034
Callum Talbot has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Macarthur FC 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.