The Valenciennes Post
Match8 Apr 2028
At last: Valenciennes win one
9 matches without a win, and then this, against ESTAC Troyes. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Gelson Martins 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 Valenciennes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Apr 2028
A row about effort at Valenciennes
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Álvaro Martín was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Nobody could get near Álex Berenguer
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match8 Apr 2028
Noah Nartey sends Valenciennes past ESTAC Troyes
It finished 1‑0, and it was Noah Nartey’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Valenciennes.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Ninety minutes of Noah Nartey at his very best
Marked 8.14. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Valenciennes.
Market10 Apr 2028
Talks stall between Valenciennes and Kemo Cissé
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Lucas Gardenier wants to go home
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Valenciennes can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
The team sheet said everything about Alain Ipiélé
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Alain Ipiélé.
In brief
- The dugout Marcel Denis: “That is the standard”
- The dugout The manager makes an example of Daou Diomandé
- The dugout Jayson Papeau left out for tactical reasons at Valenciennes