Marked for Ethan Schulz
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Jan 2029
There were 11 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match27 Dec 2028
The cup run ends for Espanyol
0‑1 against Atlético Madrid, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Player ratings1 Jan 2029
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 34 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Market1 Jan 2029
David Wieser hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Espanyol can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Jan 2029
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Match30 Dec 2028
5 matches without a win for Espanyol
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Espanyol are no longer polite ones.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Tyrhys Dolan 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 Espanyol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings1 Jan 2029
A defender's afternoon for Urko González
Defensive actions: 23. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Words at Espanyol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Omar El Hilali 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad11 Dec 2028
There were 10 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad11 Dec 2028
A move Ethan Schulz would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ethan Schulz is living that version at Espanyol, and it tends to show in the first month.
Boardroom11 Dec 2028
Still nobody in the Espanyol dugout
40 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Tyrhys Dolan 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.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Omar El Hilali 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 ratings11 Dec 2028
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings11 Dec 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.14, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match9 Dec 2028
A 1‑1 draw with Sevilla leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Market11 Dec 2028
The Edu Expósito talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Espanyol know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Oct 2028
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Tempers go at Monaco
Denis Zakaria 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.
Market2 Oct 2028
Ethan Schulz has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Monaco they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad2 Oct 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Takumi Minamino, and the manager let it.
Loan watch2 Oct 2028
“I watch every Monaco game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RC Lens runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Player ratings2 Oct 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.63, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Words at Monaco training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mika Biereth 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.
Player ratings2 Oct 2028
Ninety minutes of Ansu Fati at his very best
Marked 8.31. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Monaco.
Player ratings2 Oct 2028
A performance of 8.07 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad4 Sep 2028
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings4 Sep 2028
A brace, and Stanis Idumbo takes the afternoon — 8.73
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Stanis Idumbo provided it, and the 8.73 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match2 Sep 2028
No end in sight to Monaco's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Monaco has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad4 Sep 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Stanis Idumbo is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad4 Sep 2028
A move Titouan Thomas would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Titouan Thomas is living that version at Monaco, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market4 Sep 2028
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Market4 Sep 2028
The bid was some way short and Monaco did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market4 Sep 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Monaco is pretending he will be back in the shirt.