6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Ipswich Town and Arsenal in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Marcelino Núñez 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Daniel Foster is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. George Williams 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Edward Pearson is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ipswich Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 The request is on a desk at Ipswich Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ipswich Town had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Liverpool, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ipswich Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 23 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Ipswich Town asked and Manchester City said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Marked 8.24 — 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.
“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 Ipswich Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 11 arrived, 18 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Ipswich Town have done the hard part with Liverpool, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Ipswich Town 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.
The offer from FC Midtjylland for Leif Davis 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Ipswich Town know it.
Minute 94, against Hull City, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ipswich Town lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Ipswich Town have had the benefit of it.
19 clean sheets from 39 appearances at Barnsley. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ipswich Town they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The one award nobody else on the pitch can win goes to Christian Walton, on 15 clean sheets across the season. Keepers wait a career for a season like it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Ipswich Town can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Sam Szmodics 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.
11 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Something was said to Bobby Clark and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
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.” Adam Hawkins kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ipswich Town is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Florentino Luís 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.
Marked 8.38 — 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.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Derby County have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Derby County, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rodrigo Bentancur provided it, and the 8.34 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
11 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Watford were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
“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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Derby County heard it as anything else.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Derby County this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout15 Mar 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 Adam Barnes to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody at Derby 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.
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.
1‑4 to Hull 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Derby County can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Sam Szmodics was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. 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.
Jaydon Banel 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.
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
Nobody left the Derby County dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout8 Mar 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 1‑4 defeat, delivered by Adam Barnes to a room that had heard them before.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Marcos Senesi's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ipswich Town can pretend not to have heard.
Dara O'Shea 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match6 Mar 2027
After 4 games, Ipswich Town finally taste it again
The first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Coventry City; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Adam Barnes after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ipswich Town they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ipswich Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jack Clarke. 2‑1 against Leicester City, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
14 shut-outs in 28 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Cieran Slicker has been having a lot of them.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Hull City next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
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.
Sam Szmodics 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.
Derby County asked and Manchester United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Nobody at Derby 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rhian Brewster trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“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 Derby County, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Tyrell Malacia wants continental football; whether Derby County can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Derby County asked and Brentford said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Derby County can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
In brief
Player ratingsSam Szmodics beats them one at a time
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Jack Robinson
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.
Jack Robinson 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Derby County asked and Tottenham said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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 Derby County, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Derby County have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Up for the corner, and Lewis Travis delivers — 7.99
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Lewis Travis scored, was marked 7.99, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Sunderland is saying, and nobody at Derby County is enjoying the guessing.
Tyrell Malacia 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 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 10 actions, 7.89, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Hicham Mahou, and the manager let it.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Adam Barnes, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Julio Enciso wants continental football; whether Ipswich Town can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Ipswich Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julio Enciso 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.
Marcelino Núñez 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.
Out, 1‑2 to West Ham United, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
At 2 goals adrift this was a formality, and the formality lasted right up until it did not. Derby County found something the first half had given no notice of, and Ipswich Town could not hold what they had.
Two goals and a mark of 9.45 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
7.26, 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Derby County this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Jack Robinson 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Craig Forsyth and Derby County agree another 1 years.
The dugout7 Dec 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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Adam Barnes to a room that had heard them before.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Derby County will not try tonight.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Tyrell Malacia is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Nobody at Derby 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Henrik Meister provided it, and the 8.99 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. Gabi Pereira has just signed for Derby County, and for once the answer mattered.
Jack Robinson 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 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.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Derby County scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Tyrell Malacia 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Joe Ward, and the manager let it.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Adam Barnes, on a 3‑2 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutJack Robinson dropped after a run of poor form
Jaydon Banel 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 pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Oscar Fraulo, and the manager let it.
The dugout16 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 Adam Barnes left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Portsmouth in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Bobby Clark signs something — a contract at Derby County or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Oscar Fraulo
Jack Robinson 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: 17. 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
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.
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
10 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.
Defensive actions: 15. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Jack Robinson
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Craig Forsyth and Derby County agree another 1 years.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Derby County, and both men came out saying it was fine.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
1‑4 to Leicester 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.
Tyrell Malacia 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
Boardroom21 Sep 2026
Nobody left the Derby County dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
10 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 Sep 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 1‑4 defeat, delivered by Adam Barnes to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Jack Robinson
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Derby County can pretend not to have heard.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Carlton Morris provided it, and the 8.99 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The deal that would have taken David Ozoh to West Ham United has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Derby County with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Jack Robinson 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.
Derby County asked and Nottingham Forest said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Carlton Morris had Derby County level again within 2 minutes, and Millwall never got to play with a lead at all.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Hicham Mahou
“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 Derby County, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Bobby Clark reports back to Derby County with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 11 signed and 4 gone
That is the business done at Derby 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.
Carlton Morris 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.
Derby County asked and Stockport County said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Derby County people have started saying his name in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Derby County this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Derby County have gone to Bournemouth 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.
474 appearances across 14 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
49 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 loan enquiry to New England Revolution: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.