Marked for Jon Guthrie
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Aug 2027
John Cunningham damages knee ligaments — 27 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
Market9 Aug 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Burton Albion have kept their man, and Blackpool go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Aston Villa is saying, and nobody at Blackpool is enjoying the guessing.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Ayoub Aleesami 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.
The dugout9 Aug 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Henry Cartwright, and the manager let it.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jon Guthrie and Blackpool agree another 1 years.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Andy Lyons 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.
Market9 Aug 2027
Blackpool have made Grant Smith available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Jun 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Blackpool can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
The deal with West Ham United 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.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
Blackpool have gone to Crystal Palace 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.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
The manager makes an example of Grant Smith
“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.
Market14 Jun 2027
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Blackpool, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad14 Jun 2027
The formation has left Jon Guthrie behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Blackpool will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Market14 Jun 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Leighton Clarkson’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Jun 2027
The arithmetic ran out, and everybody could see it coming from a distance. The hard summer starts now, and next season's fixtures will be full of unfamiliar names.
Boardroom7 Jun 2027
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Joseph Price clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
Squad7 Jun 2027
19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Northampton Town lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Boardroom7 Jun 2027
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market7 Jun 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Boardroom7 Jun 2027
“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.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
Everything agreed with Liverpool, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Andrea Gualdi gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Andrea Gualdi has just signed for Northampton Town, and for once the answer mattered.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad29 Mar 2027
95 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Northampton Town lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The terraces29 Mar 2027
Anger at Northampton Town spills outside the ground
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.
Boardroom29 Mar 2027
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Northampton Town is running low.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Northampton Town may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Cruz Ibeh in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Northampton Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Dean Campbell
“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.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
A promise honoured for Owen Beck
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Northampton Town told Owen Beck something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Market29 Mar 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Tyrese Fornah has his answer from Northampton Town; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Federico Pereyra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Remi Matthews
134 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Northampton Town lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.18 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match24 Oct 2026
11 matches without a win, and then this, against Plymouth Argyle. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Northampton Town may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Tyrese Fornah goes up and wins it — 7.79
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 7.79 for the rest of it.
Squad26 Oct 2026
George Edmundson 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.
Match24 Oct 2026
It finished 3‑1, and it was Jack Taylor’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Northampton Town.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Elliott Moore 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Ross Fitzsimons knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match3 Oct 2026
The run now stands at 10, and the questions being asked around Northampton Town are no longer polite ones.
Squad5 Oct 2026
400 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Loan watch5 Oct 2026
“I watch every Northampton Town game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Rotherham United runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Northampton Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Elliott Moore 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Everybody at Northampton Town saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 37 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Zech Obiero gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jon Guthrie and Northampton Town agree another 1 years.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Marked 7.15. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout5 Oct 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.” Joseph Price chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 13 signed and 6 gone
That is the business done at Northampton Town 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Northampton Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Northampton Town asked and Portsmouth said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The medical room confirms 45 days on the sidelines for Matthew Ireland, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
No hiding place for Liam Shaw
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Liam Shaw, and the manager let it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Terry Taylor is no longer first choice
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Terry Taylor 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Jack Taylor wants out of the dugout
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Northampton Town will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Jon Guthrie has been promised minutes
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Jon Guthrie has written the date down.