A brace, and Adam Phillips takes the afternoon — 8.31
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Adam Phillips provided it, and the 8.31 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Stockport County and Preston have settled on $620.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Stockport County have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
13 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
The name of Othmane Maamma has come up in conversations Stockport County were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stockport County this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$130.0K on the table at Charlton Athletic. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
“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 The request is on a desk at Stockport County, and it is not being withdrawn.
96 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.
Player ratings30 Apr 2029
A brace, and Mike Trésor takes the afternoon — 8.20
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mike Trésor provided it, and the 8.20 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Mike Trésor 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 2‑1 win over Shrewsbury Town, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.30 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
11 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Stockport County is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
50 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
Two goals and a mark of 8.48 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Position 3, 80 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.
Mike Trésor 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Michael Cook has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Thomas Wilson has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Timothy Barnes has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Stockport County is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Mike Trésor 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.
Accrington Stanley left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
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 0‑2 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Nobody at Stockport County is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
In brief
The dugoutAshley Fletcher has become a man the manager trusts
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Malik Mothersille will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Stockport County the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Mike Trésor 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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 6 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout11 Dec 2028
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 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Accrington Stanley next, and one man in the Stockport County dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“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 Stockport County, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Stockport County they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Oliver Norwood and Stockport County agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
3 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Out, 0‑5 to Manchester United, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
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.
It finished 0-5. 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Stockport County is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Stockport County have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stockport County this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.48, and 2 involvements.
At 23 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.
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Stockport County lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Stockport County, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Stockport County is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Max Kilman 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Stockport County, another week without a signature from Josh Dacres-Cogley.
Nobody at Stockport County 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Stockport County are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
In brief
The dugoutJay Mingi is still being punished for one mistake
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Stockport County they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Marcus Bettinelli and Stockport County agree another 2 years.
At 23 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Admir Bristrić. 2‑0 against Newport County, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
106 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Stockport County lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stockport County can pretend not to have heard.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Admir Bristrić provided it, and the 8.31 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two goals and a mark of 7.96 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The unbeaten run reaches 11. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
Deadline passes with 17 signed and 17 gone
That is the business done at Stockport County until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Santiago Paz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Stockport County the goodbyes have quietly begun.
11 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stockport County this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
135 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Stockport County lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Stockport County will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Stockport County have lost him in all but the paperwork.
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.
“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 Stockport County, and it is not being withdrawn.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Stockport County have done the hard part with River Plate, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Teenage Hadebe and Stockport County agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Stockport County will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer from Stripfing for Adama Sidibeh 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.
West Bromwich Albion wanted more than $4.9M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
“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 Stockport County, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Blackburn Rovers have kept their man, and Stockport County go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $311.5K — a club that wants Kealey Adamson enough to be asked twice.
Stockport County have gone to Manchester City 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.
Teenage Hadebe 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 Stockport County will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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 deal with Nottingham Forest is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Stockport County have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stockport County can pretend not to have heard.
$3.9M on the table at West Bromwich Albion. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The name of Kyle Wootton has come up in conversations Stockport County were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $4.6M for Othmane Maamma, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
It is arithmetic now, and the arithmetic is done. A summer of hard questions starts early at Stockport County, and next season's fixture list reads very differently.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Stockport County will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
Stockport County and Watford have settled on $4.6M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Stockport County have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
$4.9M on the table at Derby County. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Stockport County is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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 Stockport County, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 112 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zeki Amdouni 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Stockport County, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Stockport County will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jordan Gibson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Stockport County the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Stockport County have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Daniel Kelly 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.
“I did not go to FC Košice to sit and watch. I want to come back to Stockport County and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
Brad Hills is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Brad Hills trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
There were 10 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings6 Mar 2028
A brace, and Joël Piroe takes the afternoon — 8.32
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Joël Piroe provided it, and the 8.32 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Marcus Bettinelli and Stockport County agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zeki Amdouni 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Daniel Kelly 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.
100 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adam Phillips was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stockport County this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
6 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.
The dugout21 Feb 2028
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.” Jack Graham kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Brad Hills trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Portsmouth moved on, Kyle Wootton reports back to Stockport County, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
A brace, and Joël Piroe takes the afternoon — 8.27
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Joël Piroe provided it, and the 8.27 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 5 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at West Ham United is saying, and nobody at Stockport County is enjoying the guessing.
Jordan Beyer 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.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.98 beside his name.
In brief
SquadWords at Stockport County training over how hard people work
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.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Stockport County is running low.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Stockport County have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Stockport County have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Transfer targets31 Jan 2028
$470.0K settles it between the clubs for James Crole
Newport County have accepted the money. What Stockport County do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stockport County can pretend not to have heard.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Stockport County has to find a result from somewhere.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stockport County can pretend not to have heard.
Everything agreed with Bournemouth, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The fee is $430.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Cambridge United drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Adam Phillips 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.
Stockport County asked and Fulham said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stockport County can pretend not to have heard.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Leeds United have kept their man, and Stockport County go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
$7.2M was the most the club would pay and Liverpool 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.
Transfer targets10 Jan 2028
$430.0K settles it between the clubs for George Lloyd
Cambridge United have accepted the money. What Stockport County do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.62 for the rest of it.
Teenage Hadebe 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 Adam Phillips was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
1 for Oliver Norwood, marked 7.59, 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.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.57 for the rest of it.
Teenage Hadebe 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Phillips 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 needed Oliver Norwood to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Mansfield Town, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
1‑4 against Plymouth Argyle, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stockport County this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Adam Phillips 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.
Marked 7.41 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Beaten 4 times, with 3 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stockport County this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Phillips 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
12 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.
2‑5 to Wycombe Wanderers, 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.
1 for Daniel Kelly, marked 7.28, 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.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.46, and 2 involvements.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Stockport County and Wycombe Wanderers in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Phillips 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Phillips 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Stockport County, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Stockport County told Owen Dodgson something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Stockport County know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
10 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Stockport County has to find a result from somewhere.
1‑4 to Bradford 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.
It finished 0-6. 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.
Teenage Hadebe 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.
Match2 Nov 2027
Nobody could stop scoring
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Stockport County and Ipswich Town in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adam Phillips was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Stockport County, and 7 appearances in 21 say he has earned the hearing.