“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 The request is on a desk at Lausanne-Sport, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Basel have kept their man, and Lausanne-Sport go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 Lausanne-Sport this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jamie Roche was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
8 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.
Karlo Letica 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 Jamie Roche was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Lausanne-Sport are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Lausanne-Sport will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Nobody at Lausanne-Sport 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Lausanne-Sport, another week without a signature from Daan Dierckx.
Position 4 on 35 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Nobody at Standard Liege 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Matthieu Epolo signs something — a contract at Standard Liege or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Boško Šutalo has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Standard Liege. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jaurès Assoumou provided it, and the 9.05 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alexandro Calut will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Standard Liege the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Standard Liege this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8.44. 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.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Standard Liege will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Four weeks in which nobody in the division did his job better. The award goes on a shelf and the player goes back into the side, which is the order Standard Liege prefer.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Adnane Abid 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.
Perr Schuurs 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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Standard Liege training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
0‑2 to Cercle Brugge, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Yannick Fellaini to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody at Standard Liege 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Two goals and a mark of 8.24 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” KAA Gent have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. René Vanden Borre will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around KAA Gent the goodbyes have quietly begun.
3 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.
Davy Roef 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 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” KAA Gent have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 KAA Gent, and 2 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
“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 KAA Gent know it.
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 Maxim Glushenkov is on it.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at KAA Gent, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Aiham Ousou signs something — a contract at KAA Gent or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
1‑0 against Bayer Leverkusen, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Standard Liege will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Perr Schuurs 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Allan Saint-Maximin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every Standard Liege game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at KAA Gent runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Casper Nielsen. 1‑0 against KAA Gent, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
In brief
Player ratingsTobias Mohr was on a different afternoon to everybody else