Charlie Goode 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.
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.
Marked 8.31 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Gassan Ahadme was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.10. 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 decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Joaquín González and Colchester United agree another 3 years.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Kyle Bartley 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 The request is on a desk at Colchester United, and it is not being withdrawn.
17 in and 19 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
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.
8 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.
Kien Connolly 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 respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Exeter City next, and one man in the Colchester United dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Colchester United and Bournemouth have settled on $310.0K. 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.
The deal with Millwall 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Tottenham keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Colchester United offered $110.0K; Reading said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Kaion Lisbie and Colchester United agree another 4 years.
Kien Connolly 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.
Everything agreed with Hull City, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Norwich City is saying, and nobody at Colchester United is enjoying the guessing.
Duván Riascos 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 Moussa Baradji was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Colchester United asked and Sheffield Wednesday said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Colchester United, another week without a signature from Matthew Smith.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Conor Coady 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.
Colchester United asked and Queens Park Rangers said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Blackburn Rovers 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Colchester United know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kyreece Lisbie trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Colchester United know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 16 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Colchester United will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Finley Barbrook has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ezra Mayers, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.82
A mark of 7.82 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Colchester United have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Mohamed Touré has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Dani Ángel. 2‑0 against Barnet, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leon Chiwome 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.
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 7.27 for the rest of it.
4 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.
Thimothée Lo-Tutala 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.
Matthew Smith scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Bristol Rovers, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Christopher Bennett to a room that had heard them before.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Leon Chiwome 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stephen Duke-McKenna 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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Kyle Bartley.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Colchester United have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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 7.53 for the rest of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Colchester United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
1 for Matthew Smith, marked 7.86, 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.
Duván Riascos 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.
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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leon Chiwome 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.
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.
1 for Matthew Smith, marked 7.83, 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Laurence Maguire has just signed for Colchester United, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
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 7.84 for the rest of it.
Duván Riascos 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
11 combined actions and 6.98. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ben Perry and Colchester United agree another 4 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Colchester United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Kevin Piedrahita and Colchester United agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Christopher Bennett chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Leon Chiwome 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.
Nobody at Colchester United 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 used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Barnet in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Ezra Mayers 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Christopher Bennett after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Crewe Alexandra? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Duván Riascos 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 James Sasere was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Owura Edwards’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Colchester United needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Matthew Smith signs something — a contract at Colchester United or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Colchester United, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Next up on the road: Grimsby Town, position 22. The supporters who go will talk about it all week and the ones who do not will check their phones at ten to five.
In brief
SquadTivonge Rushesha is training like a man with a point to make
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Colchester United 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 Colchester United 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 Colchester United, another week without a signature from Matthew Smith.
The dugout9 Nov 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 0‑1 Christopher Bennett left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Owura Edwards'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.
“I am not asking anybody to be better than they are. I am asking everybody to be as good as they are, every week.” Said out loud, in front of everybody, and the room at Colchester United was different afterwards.
In brief
Player ratingsEzra Mayers spends the afternoon fouling
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. 7.34, and 2 involvements.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Colchester United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 19 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.
Marked 8.48 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
1‑6 against Milton Keynes Dons, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
1 for Matthew Smith, marked 7.86, 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Colchester United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Colchester United and Milton Keynes Dons, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Freddie Ingram and Colchester United agree another 3 years.
13 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.
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 7.83 for the rest of it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Colchester United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Duván Riascos 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.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Barrow AFC were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
12 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.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
The dugout28 Sep 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.” Christopher Bennett kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Colchester United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
7.68, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Dani Ángel 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.
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Colchester United lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
1 for Charlie Goode, marked 7.72, 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Colchester United, another week without a signature from Tivonge Rushesha.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Christopher Bennett chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Leon Chiwome 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.
A brace, and Leon Chiwome takes the afternoon — 8.54
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Leon Chiwome provided it, and the 8.54 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Stephen Duke-McKenna has just signed for Colchester United, and for once the answer mattered.
Colchester United had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Coventry City, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Duván Riascos 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.
Colchester United have gone to Bradford 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Frankie Terry has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $300.4K — a club that wants Ben Elliott enough to be asked twice.
Everything agreed with West Ham United, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
$280.0K was the most the club would pay and Reading 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.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Andrew Johnson 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Samuel Green has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Finley Burns and Wigan Athletic agree another 3 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 Wigan Athletic this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A loan enquiry to Liverpool: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Joseph Hungbo 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.
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
A decision that decides nothing on the pitch and everything in the room. The manager has said, without saying it, whose voice he wants heard when his own is not there.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Cole Simms trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.