8 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Harrogate Town were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Salford City training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brian Sarmiento 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.
Kallum Cesay 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.
At 22 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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Kadeem Harris
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Salford City will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 8 signed and 6 gone
That is the business done at Salford City 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Salford City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Chelsea have kept their man, and Salford City go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Salford City will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Alfie Dorrington is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Brandon Cooper’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Salford City needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Salford City, another week without a signature from Kallum Cesay.
Wycombe Wanderers 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Salford City, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Looking ahead10 Aug 2026
Salford City take on the side everybody is chasing
Newport County arrive as leaders. A side at the top is beaten roughly once a month, and the club that does it gets a week it remembers for a year.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Newport County in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Salford City, another week without a signature from Kelly N'Mai.
Still no offer on the table, and Luke Garbutt’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.