Marked for Mannou Berger
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Leif Davis 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Mannou Berger gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mannou Berger has just signed for Ipswich Town, and for once the answer mattered.
Match10 Oct 2026
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Market12 Oct 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Issa Diop wants continental football; whether Ipswich Town can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Cédric Kipré gets it from the manager
“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
Christian Walton 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.
Match10 Oct 2026
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. Middlesbrough came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
Market12 Oct 2026
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Mannou Berger is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 68. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.51 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Jakub Moder 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 Feyenoord this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Gernot Trauner 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.
The terraces5 Oct 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Luciano Valente 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
It finished 2‑0, and it was Ayase Ueda’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Feyenoord.
Loan watch5 Oct 2026
“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 Feyenoord, and 1 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad5 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Ayase Ueda knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Feyenoord, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match26 Sep 2026
Derby day misery for Feyenoord
Losing 0‑1 is one thing; losing to PSV in a derby is a wound that takes months to close.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Gernot Trauner 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Oussama Targhalline 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 ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jakub Moder, and the manager let it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Feyenoord are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market14 Sep 2026
Feyenoord say no — this time
The offer from Cambuur for Aymen Sliti was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Match12 Sep 2026
No end in sight to Feyenoord's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Feyenoord has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Givairo Read 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 Feyenoord this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Feyenoord training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gernot Trauner 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Kevin Alvarez
“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.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Squad14 Sep 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Feyenoord have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market24 Aug 2026
The fee is $10.4M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Utrecht drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 Feyenoord, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Siebe Horemans gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Siebe Horemans has just signed for Feyenoord, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Gernot Trauner 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.
Squad24 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 Feyenoord this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.23, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad24 Aug 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.