Marked for Moussa Ba
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 May 2027
Yanis Chahid 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.
Squad31 May 2027
Lassana Diakhaby 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 dugout31 May 2027
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Lucas Lavallée is on it.
Market31 May 2027
Gwenn Foulon returns from a loan that gave him nothing
4 appearances and 1 goals is not a season, it is a year somebody has lost. Whether that is his fault, the borrowing club's or the people who arranged it is the argument the next few weeks will have.
The dugout31 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gregory Kelo, and the manager let it.
Market31 May 2027
LB Chateauroux have made Gwenn Foulon available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
Squad31 May 2027
Gregory Kelo has had enough of the bench
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and LB Chateauroux will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The dugout31 May 2027
Moussa Ba has been promised minutes
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Moussa Ba has written the date down.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market24 May 2027
Only the photograph left for Amadou Konaté
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Amadou Konaté will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around LB Chateauroux the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at LB Chateauroux training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bakary Haïdara 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 May 2027
Jad Koembo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout24 May 2027
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The dugout24 May 2027
Loïck Piquionne has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at LB Chateauroux will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 May 2027
The knee: Mattéo Massy out for 25 days
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. LB Chateauroux lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The dugout10 May 2027
This is not rotation. Bakary Sako has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at LB Chateauroux is pretending otherwise.
Squad10 May 2027
Yanis Chahid and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad10 May 2027
Lassana Diakhaby 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 dugout10 May 2027
Moussa Ba 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.
The dugout10 May 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout10 May 2027
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Squad10 May 2027
Mattéo Massy speaks, and the room listens
“I am not asking anybody to be better than they are. I am asking everybody to be as good as they are, every week.” Said out loud, in front of everybody, and the room at LB Chateauroux was different afterwards.
Market10 May 2027
OGC Nice had somebody in the stand with a notebook, and he was not there for the pies. Watching is free; the next step is not.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Nobody could get near Jad Koembo
Successful dribbles: 27. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Jad Koembo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match17 Apr 2027
It finished 1‑0, and it was Noa Mupemba’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to LB Chateauroux.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Nobody on the pitch touched Noa Mupemba
7.84, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. LB Chateauroux had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at LB Chateauroux training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lassana Diakhaby 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.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Guillaume Le Gall, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
The manager makes an example of Moustapha Fall
“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.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Akim Djaha
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
Akim Djaha gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Akim Djaha is on it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Nobody could get near Jad Koembo
Successful dribbles: 35. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Yanis Chahid and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Bakary Sako and LB Chateauroux agree another 2 years.
Match6 Mar 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at LB Chateauroux training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lassana Diakhaby 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.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Guillaume Le Gall to a room that had heard them before.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Jad Koembo named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Jad Koembo is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Lucas Lavallée is on it.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Moussa Ba
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout1 Mar 2027
Mattéo Massy: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” LB Chateauroux have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market1 Mar 2027
Only the photograph left for Amadou Konaté
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Amadou Konaté will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around LB Chateauroux the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Yanis Chahid and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bakary Haïdara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad1 Mar 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at LB Chateauroux can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Market1 Mar 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at LB Chateauroux, another week without a signature from Bakary Haïdara.
Looking ahead1 Mar 2027
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Brahima Magassa’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and LB Chateauroux needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Market1 Mar 2027
Aymeric Potiron is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at LB Chateauroux has been clear about where Aymeric Potiron stands, which is more than many ever get.
Market1 Mar 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Bakary Haïdara signs something — a contract at LB Chateauroux or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match4 Nov 2026
0‑1 against Olympique Lyonnais, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 32. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match7 Nov 2026
No end in sight to LB Chateauroux's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at LB Chateauroux has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Gaoussou Traoré and LB Chateauroux agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bakary Haïdara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Marked 8.11 — 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.
Squad9 Nov 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 LB Chateauroux this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
The step up is real for Jad Koembo
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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Lucas Lavallée and LB Chateauroux agree another 4 years.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A muscle injury and 14 days out for Jad Koembo
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. LB Chateauroux will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lassana Diakhaby was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager makes Moussa Ba a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at LB Chateauroux. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Nobody could get near Jad Koembo
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Yanis Chahid is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match3 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, LB Chateauroux 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at LB Chateauroux training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bakary Haïdara 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 143% of everything LB Chateauroux earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Djibril Diarra and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Guillaume Le Gall chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Moussa Ba
“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.