Danny Collinge 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Mark Shelton 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.
Marked 8.10 — 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.
The goal that put Salford City ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Barnet equalised, 4 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Nikola Tavares will call it something else in private.
Something was said to Rhys Browne and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Barnet can pretend not to have heard.
Barnet offered $380.0K; Nottingham Forest said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Idris Kanu 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Harry Smith. 1‑0 against Notts County, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. Accrington Stanley will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Damola Ajayi, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.61
A mark of 8.61 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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 The request is on a desk at Barnet, and it is not being withdrawn.
1 for Nnamdi Ofoborh, marked 7.54, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
$380.0K on the table at Nottingham Forest. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Burton Albion paid $260.0K and Barnet took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Nnamdi Ofoborh. 3‑2 against Accrington Stanley, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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 Barnet, and it is not being withdrawn.
Danny Collinge 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Idris Kanu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Barnet, and 4 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Danny Collinge has his answer from Barnet; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Barnet have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Nicholas Moore after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Nnamdi Ofoborh has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Colchester United next, and one man in the Barnet dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nobody at Barnet is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
5 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.
Britt Assombalonga 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Idris Kanu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Nicholas Moore was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Barnet dressing room was either.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Harry Smith trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Barnet this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Emmanuel Osadebe’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Barnet needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nobody at Barnet 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Callum Stead has his answer from Barnet; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Nicholas Moore on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ben Winterburn is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Chesterfield left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Idris Kanu 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.
Jacob Labovitz 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.
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Idris Kanu has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Barnet.
The dugout5 Oct 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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Nicholas Moore to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
Boardroom87% of the income goes out in wages at Barnet
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
At 23 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.
Something was said to Callum Stead and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
In brief
Looking aheadBarnet take on the side everybody is chasing
The dugoutBetão left out for tactical reasons at Barnet
“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 Barnet, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 15 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Barnet 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.
Barnet had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Tottenham, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Barnet will try again when the window opens; Reading may not be selling by then.
A loan enquiry to West Ham United: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
In brief
The dugoutAdam Senior knocks on the manager’s door
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. George Lloyd is living that version at Barnet, and it tends to show in the first month.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: West Ham United keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Simon Clark has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Richard Cooper has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. George James has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. John Price has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Barnet know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Harry Smith is a Barnet player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Barnet this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Barnet will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Still no offer on the table, and Nnamdi Ofoborh’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
A loan enquiry to Sheffield United: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Barnet have made the call to West Ham United. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Barnet has been clear about where Oli Hawkins stands, which is more than many ever get.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Barnet, another week without a signature from Britt Assombalonga.