Marked for Harrison Holgate
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Jul 2027
Freddy Bernal and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Jul 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Kelland Watts commits to Cambridge United for another 4 years.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
Cambridge United asked and Middlesbrough 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 dugout19 Jul 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Josh Gordon, and the manager let it.
Squad19 Jul 2027
8 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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Jul 2027
Freddy Bernal 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.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
Cambridge United asked and Burnley said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Kelsey Mooney 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.
Market5 Jul 2027
“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.
Boardroom5 Jul 2027
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.
The dugout5 Jul 2027
Dominic Ball knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Cambridge United, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Harrison Holgate has moved up it.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Korey Smith keeps his options open
“I will play as long as the body lets me and stop the day it does not.” He is 36, with 499 appearances behind him, and the club has to plan for a decision that is not yet made.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 May 2027
Ryan Loft and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout10 May 2027
The manager makes an example of Juan Galeano
“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 dugout10 May 2027
Gassan Ahadme knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Gassan Ahadme trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market10 May 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Cambridge United, another week without a signature from Mamadou Jobe.