Marked for Christopher Krishna
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match13 Aug 2040
14 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad13 Aug 2040
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tailevu Naitasiri lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad13 Aug 2040
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad6 Aug 2040
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tailevu Naitasiri lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad6 Aug 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tailevu Naitasiri this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom6 Aug 2040
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Squad6 Aug 2040
Words at Tailevu Naitasiri training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Popovic 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.
Boardroom6 Aug 2040
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad6 Aug 2040
Altamish Khan has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Tailevu Naitasiri 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces30 Jul 2040
Anger at Tailevu Naitasiri spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad30 Jul 2040
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tailevu Naitasiri lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad30 Jul 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tailevu Naitasiri this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom23 Jul 2040
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Tailevu Naitasiri is running low.
Squad23 Jul 2040
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tailevu Naitasiri lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad23 Jul 2040
Gabriel Popovic 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.
Squad23 Jul 2040
Reon Werahiko has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Tailevu Naitasiri 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.
Squad23 Jul 2040
Peni Lal gets it from the manager
“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
Crisis
Match16 Jul 2040
Every point is an argument now for Tailevu Naitasiri
Position 10 and 14 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Squad16 Jul 2040
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tailevu Naitasiri lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad16 Jul 2040
Gabriel Popovic 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.