Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Real Sociedad B will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Real Sociedad B is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Samuel Mitchell is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad13 Sep 2038
Tomáš Škubala 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.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Real Sociedad B will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Christopher Reid will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Real Sociedad B the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Marked 8.77 — 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomáš Škubala 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.
1 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Real Sociedad B money.
Market6 Sep 2038
The window shut and Tomáš Škubala is still in the building
Real Sociedad B spent a month trying to move him and nobody rang back. He trains with a squad that has told him where he stands, and both sides start counting down to the next one.
In brief
The terracesThe press have found their man in Gonzalo Pastor
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Real Sociedad B they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Samuel Mitchell is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad16 Aug 2038
Tomáš Škubala 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Real Sociedad B this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.