Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Lewis Bate scored in the 86th minute, Burton Albion had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Stockport County took the lot.
A 2‑1 win over Burton Albion, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Lewis Bate was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.05. 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.
Ryan Rydel 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Charles Butler on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Odin Bailey's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Stockport County has been clear about where Kyle Wootton stands, which is more than many ever get.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Stockport County, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Stockport County 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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Stockport County have no good answer.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Callum Connolly has written the date down.
A side in position 8 visits next. The result will not make anybody’s season and it could quietly break the shape of one, which is why the manager has been watching the video since Sunday.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Callum Connolly scored, was marked 7.89, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Oliver Norwood 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.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
A point taken on 87 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Marked 8.43 — 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.
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 point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Charles Butler after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Huddersfield Town? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Doncaster Rovers in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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 Malik Mothersille is on it.
Chances created: 7. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Charles Butler chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Lincoln City? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Huddersfield Town next, and one man in the Stockport County dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nobody at Stockport County 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.
At 22 he has made the position his own, and the man he took it from has to find something to say about it. Stockport County have a decision that made itself.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Joseph Olowu commits to Stockport County for another 4 years.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Jay Mingi has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Lincoln City in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lewis Bate trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Stockport County would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Stockport County. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Marcus Bettinelli and Stockport County agree another 2 years.
13 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Oliver Norwood has come out of that comparison in the side, and Stockport County have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Odin Bailey's mistake
4‑1, and Oliver Norwood took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Stockport County tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A brace, and Kyle Wootton takes the afternoon — 8.96
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kyle Wootton provided it, and the 8.96 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Marcus Forss was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. 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 kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Oliver Norwood provided it, and the 8.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two goals and a mark of 8.32 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Jid Okeke, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.84
A mark of 7.84 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.
Adama Sidibeh 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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Benoný Breki Andrésson 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Charles Butler could afford to be generous.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stockport County can pretend not to have heard.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Stockport County has to find a result from somewhere.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stockport County can pretend not to have heard.
Portsmouth wanted more than $4.2M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 11 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at Stockport County 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 number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $4.5M — a club that wants Terry Devlin enough to be asked twice.
Still no offer on the table, and Marcus Bettinelli’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Jay Mingi has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Stockport County are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
$3.6M on the table at Portsmouth. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $4.5M — a club that wants Josh Eccles enough to be asked twice.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
15 combined actions and 7.07. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Stockport County have gone to Coventry City 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.
$250.0K was the most the club would pay and Barnsley were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ty Barnett is living that version at Stockport County, and it tends to show in the first month.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. FC Nantes have kept their man, and Stockport County go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Charles Butler left the room before anybody could ask which.
0‑3 against Cardiff City, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Stockport County and Manchester City have settled on $380.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $267.0K — a club that wants Kacper Łopata enough to be asked twice.
Stockport County have gone to Barnsley 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.
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Harry Bell 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 offer went to Preston this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $6.3M — a club that wants Daniel Iversen enough to be asked twice.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stockport County this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Stockport County, and both men came out saying it was fine.
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
584 appearances across 9 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Add another name to the list: Oleksandriya have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Kyle Wootton. The answer from Stockport County has not changed — yet.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Oliver Norwood and Stockport County agree another 2 years.
“57 caps. I have loved every one, and it is somebody else’s turn.” At 35 he has stepped away from his country and is going nowhere at Stockport County.