Marked for Houssem Bayoud
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Aug 2026
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. ES Mostaganem lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. ES Mostaganem will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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
Ali Haroun 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Ahly have kept their man, and ES Mostaganem go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Djamel Benlamri 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
ES Mostaganem have made the call to MC Alger. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Police Union have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
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 The request is on a desk at MC El Bayadh, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
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 MC El Bayadh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
MC El Bayadh asked and USM Alger said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Al Ahly: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad24 Aug 2026
MC El Bayadh are still strangers to each other
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ismail Belaili and MC El Bayadh agree another 4 years.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The formation has left Houssem Bayoud behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. MC El Bayadh will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Market24 Aug 2026
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and MC El Bayadh have gone and got theirs early.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
No thanks: Julien Vetro rejects the move
MC El Bayadh had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Sochaux, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ammar El Orfi 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zabbar St. Patrick have kept their man, and MC El Bayadh go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to ES Mostaganem: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Market17 Aug 2026
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and MC El Bayadh have gone and got theirs early.