Marked for Elfayed Maanrifa
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market25 Jan 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AS Nancy have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market25 Jan 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at AS Nancy, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Zenit keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Ludovic Ajorque 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
At 21, Victor Orakpo is already the best thing here
An average of 7.14 in a first team he is several years too young for. AS Nancy have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Market25 Jan 2027
Tours pay $420.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Avellino have kept their man, and AS Nancy go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad25 Jan 2027
15 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Adrien Julloux 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad11 Jan 2027
Defences have started doubling up on Ludovic Ajorque
35 goals and a season average of 8.00 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 11 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.98 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match11 Jan 2027
AS Nancy up to position 3
50 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
No sign of nerves from Justin Bourgault at 21 — 7.64
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Justin Bourgault did not need any: 7.64, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
The paperwork begins on Saliou Diop
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. AS Nancy have done the hard part with Stade Brestois, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad11 Jan 2027
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at AS Nancy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nehemiah Fernandez 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.
Match9 Jan 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ludovic Ajorque. 3‑1 against Dijon, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Sep 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 AS Nancy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Match26 Sep 2026
Whatever happens, AS Nancy do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match26 Sep 2026
After 5 games, AS Nancy finally taste it again
The first defeat in 5 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Red Star; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Jérémy Gélin 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
9 goals and a season average of 7.25. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“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.
Match26 Sep 2026
It needed Pape Meïssa Bâ to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Red Star, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.