40 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Cincinnati lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Miles Robinson 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at FC Cincinnati training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brian Anunga 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 50 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.
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.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one FC Cincinnati will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at FC Cincinnati hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Cincinnati this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for David Douděra
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. David Douděra has come out of that comparison in the side, and FC Cincinnati have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Obinna Nwobodo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Bryan Ramírez 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.
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at FC Cincinnati has been clear about where Alvas Powell stands, which is more than many ever get.
Atlanta United FC next, and one man in the FC Cincinnati dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FC Cincinnati, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether FC Cincinnati can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Miles Robinson and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; FC Cincinnati are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at FC Cincinnati training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Samuel Gidi 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Owen Wright left the room before anybody could ask which.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Owen Wright after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.