Marked for Yassin Belkhdim
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match7 Nov 2026
No end in sight to Angers SCO's wait for a win
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Angers SCO has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Haris Belkebla 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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Lanroy Machine 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 ratings9 Nov 2026
7.48, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Angers SCO had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match31 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Angers SCO
7 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.
Squad2 Nov 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 Angers SCO this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ousmane Camara, and the manager let it.
Match31 Oct 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The captaincy has been taken off Yassin Belkhdim. Angers SCO will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
Squad2 Nov 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match24 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Angers SCO
6 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.
Squad26 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 Angers SCO this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Amine Sbaï runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Carlens Arcus 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Angers SCO know it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match10 Oct 2026
4 matches without a win for Angers SCO
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Angers SCO are no longer polite ones.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Louis Mouton in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Angers SCO this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Moussa Grange is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A smaller club would suit Anthony Lopes now
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Angers SCO 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match26 Sep 2026
Still nobody has beaten Angers SCO
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Louis Mouton in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Angers SCO this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Melvin Zinga has improved at 24, 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Lanroy Machine 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
It needed Amine Sbaï to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against RC Lens, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Amine Sbaï runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 30. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Angers SCO can pretend not to have heard.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Louis Mouton in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Angers SCO this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Noah Nadje dropped after a run of poor form
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Marius Savidan
“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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. FC Metz came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
Market31 Aug 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Angers SCO know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Haris Belkebla spends the afternoon fouling
Fouls conceded: 6. He was booked, he was fortunate not to be booked twice, and the referee had run out of patience long before the end.