Marked for Peter Phillips
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad15 Jul 2047
A fracture rules Anthony Collins out for 50 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Western Sydney Wanderers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match15 Jul 2047
Position 1, 50 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Market15 Jul 2047
The offer from Newcastle Jets for Stefan Thomas was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market15 Jul 2047
Nathan Grant has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Western Sydney Wanderers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad15 Jul 2047
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Peter Phillips is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market1 Jul 2047
The name of Reece Lee has come up in conversations Western Sydney Wanderers were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market1 Jul 2047
“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 The request is on a desk at Western Sydney Wanderers, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market1 Jul 2047
Macarthur FC are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Western Sydney Wanderers will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad1 Jul 2047
Reece Lee has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Western Sydney Wanderers 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.
Squad1 Jul 2047
A club back home comes in for Connor Ross
The enquiry everybody at Western Sydney Wanderers was hoping would not arrive has arrived. He has never pretended he did not want to go back, and now there is somewhere to go back to.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market24 Jun 2047
The bid was some way short and Western Sydney Wanderers did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market24 Jun 2047
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market24 Jun 2047
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Western Sydney Wanderers have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad24 Jun 2047
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Western Sydney Wanderers may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market24 Jun 2047
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Squad24 Jun 2047
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Connor Ross and Western Sydney Wanderers agree another 4 years.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match22 Apr 2047
Position 1 and 50 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad22 Apr 2047
Sebastian Kršlović 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.