Marked for Chancel Mbemba
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market2 Nov 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Benjamin André 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
2‑3 to Paris FC, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad2 Nov 2026
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Hamza Igamane was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.23. 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Nobody left the LOSC Lille dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match10 Oct 2026
Nobody wants to play LOSC Lille right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ayyoub Bouaddi is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at LOSC Lille this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ngal'Ayel Mukau and LOSC Lille agree another 5 years.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match10 Oct 2026
Three points for LOSC Lille, 2‑1 the final word against Toulouse FC in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The terraces12 Oct 2026
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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.37, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Marked 8.01 — 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Benjamin André 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Chancel Mbemba wants to know where this is going
“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 LOSC Lille hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Félix Correia 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Marked 8.08. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at LOSC Lille.
Squad7 Sep 2026
He has had enough of the noise. Whether LOSC Lille can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nathan Ngoy, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
Lumezzane come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and LOSC Lille did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Olivier Giroud 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Félix Correia commits to LOSC Lille for another 4 years.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
3 academy players handed senior numbers at LOSC Lille
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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Thomas Fleury is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market17 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Olivier Picard is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
Olivier Giroud wants to know where this is going
“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 LOSC Lille hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Olivier Giroud commits to LOSC Lille for another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at LOSC Lille this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at LOSC Lille training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benjamin André 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Bourg-Peronnas have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ugo Raghouber. The answer from LOSC Lille has not changed — yet.
Market3 Aug 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Tanguy Nianzou has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at LOSC Lille.