It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Port Vale this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Port Vale training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kyle John 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 crowd waited for a goal that never came. AFC Wimbledon defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
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.
Joe Gauci 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 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 Port Vale this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Joe Gauci 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Kyle John 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.