The phone has started ringing about Jordan Burns again, and this time the name on the line is Waitakere United. Auckland City are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Auckland City will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Auckland City 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 Auckland City is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
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The words a physio says slowly. 21 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Add another name to the list: Canterbury United have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jordan Burns. The answer from Auckland City has not changed — yet.
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The words a physio says slowly. 97 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Abdullahi Abdulhamid 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.
He is 19, and nobody at Auckland City signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Nobody at Auckland City 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.