Marked for Emmanuel Biumla
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Sep 2026
Prosper Peter is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Jordan Lefort 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Marked 9.03 — 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.
The terraces28 Sep 2026
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match26 Sep 2026
RC Lens made Angers SCO work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Louis Mouton's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Prosper Peter 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
Amine Sbaï runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
6 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Sep 2026
There were 6 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Emmanuel Biumla reports back to Angers SCO with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Match5 Sep 2026
It finished 3‑1, and it was Goduine Koyalipou’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Angers SCO.
Squad7 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 Angers SCO this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Angers SCO training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carlens Arcus 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 ratings7 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.25 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tiago Azulão, and the manager let it.
Market7 Sep 2026
RC Lens are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Angers SCO will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from US Creteil for Prosper Peter 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Louis Mouton 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.
Squad24 Aug 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Angers SCO training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carlens Arcus 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 ratings24 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 19, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
The chances came and went for Prosper Peter
6 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Market24 Aug 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Abdoulaye Bamba has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Angers SCO.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Jordan Lefort 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.
In brief
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Market
Tours are about to pick up the phone
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Player ratings
Amine Sbaï runs at them all day
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Match
Point won or two lost for Angers SCO?
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
LOSC Lille paid $2.2M and Angers SCO took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Louis Mouton 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 Angers SCO this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Angers SCO
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Market17 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Emmanuel Biumla again, and this time the name on the line is Tours. Angers SCO are listening politely and promising nothing.
Market17 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Jean-Baptiste Schmitt is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.