Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdoulaye Djiré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Jarun Zagreb asked and Dinamo Bucharest said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Leon Jadek 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Jarun Zagreb know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Jarun Zagreb can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Jarun Zagreb will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Abdoulaye Djiré 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 easiest signature of my career.” Oleg Krasilnichenko and Jarun Zagreb agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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 words a physio says slowly. 46 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.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Jarun Zagreb will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Abdoulaye Djiré 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 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 change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Abdoulaye Djiré's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
Nobody at Jarun Zagreb 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.
In brief
The dugoutGijs van Wijk asks for a word with the manager
The words a physio says slowly. 104 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Jarun Zagreb can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Jarun Zagreb had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Honved, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Šimun Mikolčić 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.
Jarun Zagreb asked and Hajduk Split said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Abdoulaye Djiré's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Jarun Zagreb, another week without a signature from Jack Armer.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Tin Miljak is on it.
In brief
BoardroomJarun Zagreb pull $1.3M back off the table
Supporters organise against the Jarun Zagreb board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Dukan Ahmeti 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Borna Orlić is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Tin Miljak has come out of that comparison in the side, and Jarun Zagreb have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Mario Maloča is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Roko Peroš trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Everything was agreed with NK Varazdin and then the doctor spoke. Jarun Zagreb have walked away from a signing on the advice of somebody who never saw him play, which is how it is supposed to work.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 20 signed and 14 gone
That is the business done at Jarun Zagreb 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.
The deal with Petržalka 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Jarun Zagreb training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mario Maloča 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sigma Olomouc have kept their man, and Jarun Zagreb go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Dukan Ahmeti 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Jarun Zagreb are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Jarun Zagreb, another week without a signature from Jack Armer.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Luton Town have kept their man, and Burton Albion go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Still no offer on the table, and Caylan Vickers’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
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
5 new faces, and Burton Albion 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.
A strip of cloth that decides nothing on the pitch and tells the dressing room whose opinion counts. The manager has made a statement without making one.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Millar Matthews-Lewis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.