Filip Čihák and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Ústí nad Labem training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dennis Owusu 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 39 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Ústí nad Labem is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad15 Mar 2027
8 new faces, and Ústí nad Labem 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until André Leipold signs something — a contract at Ústí nad Labem or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Billy Waters arrives at Ústí nad Labem with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.
The best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Hale Lombard arrives at Ústí nad Labem with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.
8 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.
The offer from Gzira United for Billy Waters 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Oldham Athletic have done the hard part with Middlesbrough, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Mathew Hudson 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Taoufik Ijrouten was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A point taken on 87 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
6 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Oldham Athletic have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Nottingham Forest have accepted the money. What Oldham Athletic do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Oldham Athletic can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
Mike Fondop 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.
Oldham Athletic asked and Birmingham said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Layton Love was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 14 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Oldham Athletic had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at West Ham United, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Oldham Athletic this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Manny Monthé 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Ryan Woods has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Oldham Athletic will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Oldham Athletic have made the call to West Ham United. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
$190.0K on the table at Southampton. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Manny Monthé 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.
Kacper Pasiek is 20, and Oldham Athletic have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Matthew Carter to a room that had heard them before.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Oldham Athletic will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Layton Love 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.