Marked for Well
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad1 Mar 2038
Lucas González damages knee ligaments — 153 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 153 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad1 Mar 2038
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” AJ Auxerre may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad1 Mar 2038
Lucas González 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad27 Jul 2037
A knee injury of the worst kind for Tapsirou Sidy Lam
82 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AJ Auxerre lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad27 Jul 2037
Lucas González 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.
Market27 Jul 2037
Yann Gautier has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AJ Auxerre they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad27 Jul 2037
Lassine Sinayoko 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.
Squad27 Jul 2037
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Roger Dumas is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market27 Jul 2037
The Clément Akpa talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. AJ Auxerre know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market29 Jun 2037
“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.
Squad29 Jun 2037
Lassine Sinayoko 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.
Squad29 Jun 2037
Irvyn Lomami 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom1 Jun 2037
It is over: AJ Auxerre are relegated
The arithmetic ran out, and everybody could see it coming from a distance. The hard summer starts now, and next season's fixtures will be full of unfamiliar names.
Squad1 Jun 2037
Raymond Giraud damages knee ligaments — 20 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 20 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market1 Jun 2037
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AJ Auxerre can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Jun 2037
Irvyn Lomami 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.
Squad1 Jun 2037
Words at AJ Auxerre training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas González 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.
Boardroom1 Jun 2037
The target is the manager, the approach is real, and the compensation clause is the whole conversation. Clubs deny this kind of story right up until the photograph.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Jan 2037
A one-man rearguard from Pierre Réale
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.
Match12 Jan 2037
20 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Player ratings12 Jan 2037
Age has not caught Lucas González yet — 8.96
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.96 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad12 Jan 2037
Words at AJ Auxerre training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lassine Sinayoko 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.
Squad12 Jan 2037
Irvyn Lomami 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 AJ Auxerre this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Jan 2037
Home is on Well's mind
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; AJ Auxerre are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Market12 Jan 2037
Tours are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. AJ Auxerre will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Player ratings12 Jan 2037
8 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.