“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 The request is on a desk at Wigan Athletic, and it is not being withdrawn.
Wigan Athletic had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Brighton, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Kai Payne 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kai Payne will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Wigan Athletic the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Wigan Athletic have gone to Bradford 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.
Wigan Athletic asked and Liverpool said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wigan Athletic this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 The request is on a desk at Wigan Athletic, and it is not being withdrawn.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Reggie Walsh did not need any: 8.24, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Wigan Athletic will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
The deal with Birmingham 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Lautaro Taboada 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 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Reggie Walsh 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
14 combined actions and 7.06. 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.
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.
A 1‑0 win over Huddersfield Town, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
A point taken on 86 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.
Joe Whitworth 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.
“I watch every Wigan Athletic game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Mgarr United runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It needed Myles Peart-Harris to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Mansfield Town, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Wigan Athletic training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Archie Harris 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.
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 Fraser Murray is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Joe Taylor’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Wigan Athletic needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Peterborough United will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Wigan Athletic were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.93 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Marked 8.16 — 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.
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 Sam Tickle is on it.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Jonny Smith
Lautaro Taboada 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.
Marked 7.91 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Wigan Athletic had the best player on the pitch.
Squad7 Dec 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Lee Buchanan
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Lee Buchanan has come out of that comparison in the side, and Wigan Athletic have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Benjamin Phillips after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Lautaro Taboada 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.
Marked 8.09 — 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.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Benjamin Phillips could afford to be generous.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Wigan Athletic training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Archie Harris 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Joseph Hungbo’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Wigan Athletic needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Joe Taylor 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.” Fraser Murray and Wigan Athletic agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“I did not go to Mgarr United to sit and watch. I want to come back to Wigan Athletic and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
It needed Joe Taylor to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Wycombe Wanderers, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 2‑2, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Nobody at Wigan Athletic 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.
9 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wigan Athletic this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” James Carragher and Wigan Athletic agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jonny Smith, and the manager let it.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Wigan Athletic training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Archie Harris 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.
Nobody at Wigan Athletic 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Wigan Athletic know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Dara Costelloe wins it after the whistle should have gone
118 minutes played. Dara Costelloe found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Crystal Palace went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Dara Costelloe 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.
3 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Marked 8.23 — 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.71, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“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 dugout2 Nov 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 Benjamin Phillips left the room before anybody could ask which.
Cole Simms 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 10 actions, 6.76, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“I did not go to Mgarr United to sit and watch. I want to come back to Wigan Athletic and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
The dugout26 Oct 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 0‑1 Benjamin Phillips left the room before anybody could ask which.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Maleace Asamoah has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Wigan Athletic.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Archie Harris 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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
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 Harrison Bettoni is on it.
The first defeat in 10 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Leyton Orient; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wigan Athletic this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Benjamin Phillips after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Archie Harris 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.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bradley Burrowes is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Lautaro Taboada 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.
Something was said to Lee Buchanan and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
6 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Wigan Athletic has been clear about where Baba Adeeko stands, which is more than many ever get.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lautaro Taboada trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Wigan Athletic. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wigan Athletic this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8.29. 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Callum McManaman and Wigan Athletic agree another 1 years.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
A brace, and Ryan Trevitt takes the afternoon — 8.27
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ryan Trevitt provided it, and the 8.27 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ryan Trevitt. 3‑1 against Northampton Town, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Harrison Bettoni provided it, and the 8.67 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Harrison Bettoni 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.
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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 5 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wigan Athletic this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Benjamin Phillips was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Wigan Athletic dressing room was either.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 85th, and Stevenage spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Wigan Athletic, another week without a signature from Myles Peart-Harris.
Cole Simms 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.
6 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 dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Benjamin Phillips kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
In brief
SquadWords at Wigan Athletic training over how hard people work
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 5 signed and 9 gone
That is the business done at Wigan Athletic 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Liverpool keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Porto have kept their man, and Wigan Athletic go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Sam Tickle has come out of that comparison in the side, and Wigan Athletic have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Finley Burns 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.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Wigan Athletic than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Wigan Athletic will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Wigan Athletic had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Burnley, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Wigan Athletic asked and Benfica said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
Marked 8.07 — 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.80 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Hindolo Mustapha, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.76
A mark of 7.76 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wigan Athletic can pretend not to have heard.
Wigan Athletic asked and Stoke City said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wigan Athletic this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
2 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Wigan Athletic asked and Coventry City said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Lautaro Taboada 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Adam Turner 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. Jason Hunter 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Wigan Athletic will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Wigan Athletic know which stage they are at.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Lautaro Taboada has just signed for Wigan Athletic, and for once the answer mattered.
Joe Taylor 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Wigan Athletic are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Wigan Athletic have made the call to Benfica. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Bradford City in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Still no offer on the table, and Ronan Darcy’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Wigan Athletic have gone and got theirs early.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Finley Burns and Wigan Athletic agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wigan Athletic this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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
Joseph Hungbo 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.
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.
A decision that decides nothing on the pitch and everything in the room. The manager has said, without saying it, whose voice he wants heard when his own is not there.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Cole Simms trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.