Marked for Erwan Adonis
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Oct 2035
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market8 Oct 2035
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Stade Rennais they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom8 Oct 2035
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Erwan Adonis has agreed terms with Paris FC for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad8 Oct 2035
Enis Destan 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 Stade Rennais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Oct 2035
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Esteban Lepaul and Stade Rennais agree another 2 years.
Squad8 Oct 2035
Anthony Rouault 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 terraces8 Oct 2035
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Jean-Luc Le Goff 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.
Player ratings8 Oct 2035
Nobody could get near Shea Lacey
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings8 Oct 2035
Marked 8.68 — 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market1 Oct 2035
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad1 Oct 2035
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market1 Oct 2035
Only the photograph left for Erwan Adonis
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Erwan Adonis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Stade Rennais the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad1 Oct 2035
Enis Destan 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.
Squad1 Oct 2035
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gabriel Poirier is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad1 Oct 2035
Facundo Medina 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 ratings1 Oct 2035
Nobody could get near Shea Lacey
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match29 Sep 2035
1‑2 to Paris Saint-Germain, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market1 Oct 2035
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings24 Sep 2035
No sign of nerves from Gabriel Poirier at 21 — 8.07
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Gabriel Poirier did not need any: 8.07, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings24 Sep 2035
A first appearance Mathieu Lemaire will want to forget — 5.07
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.07, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Squad24 Sep 2035
The medical room confirms 14 days on the sidelines for Anthony Rouault, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Market24 Sep 2035
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Stade Rennais they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad24 Sep 2035
Enis Destan 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 Stade Rennais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Sep 2035
Words at Stade Rennais training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Facundo Medina 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.
Squad24 Sep 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mahdi Camara, and the manager let it.
Match22 Sep 2035
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market6 Aug 2035
AC Ajaccio come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Stade Rennais did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market6 Aug 2035
“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 Stade Rennais, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Olivier Bourgeois is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Enis Destan 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 Stade Rennais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Anthony Rouault 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.