Marked for Dan Scarr
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Market7 Sep 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Oxford United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 10 in, 9 out at Oxford United
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 10 arrived, 9 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Oxford United have gone to Huddersfield Town 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 targets7 Sep 2026
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Marcos Gómez 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
The phone has started ringing about Ole Romeny again, and this time the name on the line is Stoke City. Oxford United are listening politely and promising nothing.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Pablo Villalba, and the manager let it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Oxford United 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market31 Aug 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Oxford United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
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.
Match29 Aug 2026
4 matches without a win for Oxford United
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Oxford United are no longer polite ones.
Market31 Aug 2026
The chase for Dan Scarr ended with $350.0K changing hands and Wrexham out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Marcos Gómez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market31 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Oxford United have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Match29 Aug 2026
Derby County left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout31 Aug 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Samuel Harris to a room that had heard them before.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Arthur Okonkwo
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wrexham lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match29 Aug 2026
Nathan Broadhead wins it after the whistle should have gone
91 minutes played. Nathan Broadhead found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Sheffield Wednesday went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.30 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market31 Aug 2026
Ryan Longman hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wrexham can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Wrexham have done the hard part with Lincoln City, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Market31 Aug 2026
Stockport County pay $530.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Market31 Aug 2026
Business is business: Dan Scarr goes
Oxford United paid $350.0K and Wrexham took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Market31 Aug 2026
Burnley pay $140.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Tottenham have kept their man, and Wrexham go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Arthur Okonkwo
55 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wrexham lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nathan Broadhead commits to Wrexham for another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Wrexham
Jacques Ekomié and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market10 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Plymouth Argyle have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Matty James. The answer from Wrexham has not changed — yet.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Sunderland have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Wrexham, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Looking ahead10 Aug 2026
The leaders are next for Wrexham
Birmingham top the table and they are coming into view. Nothing to lose, which is what every manager says before losing.
Looking ahead10 Aug 2026
Dan Scarr faces his old club
Birmingham next, and one man in the Wrexham dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.