Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 76 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Birmingham lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Birmingham have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Birmingham can pretend not to have heard.
4 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Player ratings18 Nov 2030
Carlos Vicente was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.44. 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.
In brief
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Daniel Bentley
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 92 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 The request is on a desk at Birmingham, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.59 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Birmingham hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Birmingham is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Birmingham heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Birmingham this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bolton Wanderers will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Rio Patterson-Powell has pre-agreed a move to Birmingham, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad3 Jun 2030
Words at Birmingham training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pantaleo Cretì 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.
Quentin Bernard is 40 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until August Priske signs something — a contract at Birmingham or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The terraces3 Jun 2030
Supporters make their feelings known about Jhon Solís
The speculation has reached the stands, and the stands have answered. Birmingham would like this settled before it becomes the only thing anybody asks about.
Paul Delecroix 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Dijon have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dijon they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Paul Delecroix 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.
In brief
SquadKelyan Guessoum falls out with a teammate over standards
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting Melchior Anrich's mistake
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Quentin Bernard will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dijon the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Paul Delecroix 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.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dijon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dijon is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Paul Delecroix 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.
In brief
SquadKelyan Guessoum falls out with a teammate over standards
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dijon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dijon they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Dijon have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dijon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kelyan Guessoum 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dijon they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 26 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dijon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match29 Dec 2029
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Dijon. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
At 22 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 34 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Quentin Bernard has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Paul Delecroix 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 had been thinking. Ahmet Yayla 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dijon is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dijon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kelyan Guessoum 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.
Paul Delecroix 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.
8.97. 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Jean François Popess Manguele has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take 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.
Paul Delecroix 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Yanis Barka. 2‑1 against Sochaux, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.68 — 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dijon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.56, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings8 Oct 2029
Emerick Lopes was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.32. 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.
Squad8 Oct 2029
Naïm Berbar 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dijon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kelyan Guessoum 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.