Patrik Mijić 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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at HNK Gorica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ognjen Bakić 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Théo Epailly is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at HNK Gorica, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at HNK Gorica. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“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.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Ognjen Bakić 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.
Marko Jug and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Ivica Vidović'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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Jurica Pršir 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.
Dušan Stevanović 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.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Marko Aščić is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ognjen Bakić signs something — a contract at HNK Gorica or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jurica Pršir was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. HNK Gorica will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Luka Vrzić is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Patrik Mijić signs something — a contract at HNK Gorica or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HNK Gorica lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HNK Gorica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Will Collar and HNK Gorica agree another 3 years.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Ognjen Bakić 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.
“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 Milton Keynes Dons, and it is not being withdrawn.
Milton Keynes Dons have gone to Southampton with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Milton Keynes Dons had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Sunderland, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
$530.0K was the most the club would pay and Aston Villa were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Nottingham Forest have kept their man, and Milton Keynes Dons go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Ben Wiles 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.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Mathematically certain, and nobody in this town is going to bed early. Whatever else happened this season, it finishes a division above where it started.
“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 Milton Keynes Dons, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Milton Keynes Dons is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Samuel Silvera and Milton Keynes Dons agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Milton Keynes Dons this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Milton Keynes Dons has been clear about where Will Collar stands, which is more than many ever get.
Queens Park Rangers have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Milton Keynes Dons can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Milton Keynes Dons have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Curtis Nelson 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sam Sherring was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Milton Keynes Dons will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fábio Tavares was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Burton Albion can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Burton Albion, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Burton Albion 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Burton Albion know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Milton Keynes Dons can pretend not to have heard.
Amadou Mbengue 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.
Squad17 May 2027
A last season at home is what Osmar Molinas is after
It is sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout17 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Curtis Nelson'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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Milton Keynes Dons know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Milton Keynes Dons, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Rushian Hepburn-Murphy is on it.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
44 points, and the season has a number on it. Whatever it felt like from the inside, this is what it will look like in a book.
Squad3 May 2027
Fábio Tavares 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.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Mateo Anaya 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Burton Albion will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Burton Albion is running low.
Huddersfield Town left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
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 0‑1 Oliver Miller left the room before anybody could ask which.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Burton Albion, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Burton Albion can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Will Collar 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Will Collar'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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Burton Albion can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Stockport County kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Burton Albion will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
5 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.
Marked 7.84. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Fábio Tavares 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.
Will Collar 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.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
0‑3 to AFC Wimbledon, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Burton Albion training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fábio Tavares 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Burton Albion this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Burton Albion, another week without a signature from Jon Russell.
0‑3 to Cardiff City, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fábio Tavares was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Nottingham Forest have kept their man, and Burton Albion go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Will Collar 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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jon Russell. 2‑0 against Exeter City, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Burton Albion they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fábio Tavares was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Burton Albion asked and Stoke City said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
1 for Will Collar, marked 7.63, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Burton Albion training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fábio Tavares 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.
Will Collar 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.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Fábio Tavares. 2‑0 against Stevenage, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Jack Taylor was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mark O'Mahony did not need any: 7.65, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Burton Albion they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Zoumana Diallo is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fábio Tavares was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A 2‑1 win over Huddersfield Town, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Burton Albion they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Marked 7.79 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Burton Albion had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Oliver Miller kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Every touch weighed, every quote parsed, every mistake replayed. Some players grow into that; some are quietly finished by it; nobody knows which until afterwards.
Words at Burton Albion training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fábio Tavares 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Burton Albion this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Caylan Vickers trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Burton Albion has been clear about where James Jones stands, which is more than many ever get.
Nobody at Burton Albion 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Will Collar’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Burton Albion needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Burton Albion. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It finished 0-3. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Burton Albion this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Zoumana Diallo is living that version at Burton Albion, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Fábio Tavares 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 Burton Albion 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Alex Hartridge’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Burton Albion needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Jake Beesley obliged against Exeter City. 2‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Burton Albion.
Two goals and a mark of 8.69 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Will Collar 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.
The new man at Burton Albion has worked with Fábio Tavares before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Exeter City spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Newcastle United have kept their man, and Burton Albion go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Still no offer on the table, and Caylan Vickers’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Burton Albion have made the call to Hull City. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Paris Saint-Germain have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Squad3 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Burton Albion are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Burton Albion would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Millar Matthews-Lewis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.