Marked for Anis Mathurin
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market2 Aug 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at AJ Auxerre, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market2 Aug 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and FC Fleury 91 waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AJ Auxerre is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
AJ Auxerre asked and Toulouse FC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Ilies Belmokhtar and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market2 Aug 2027
Theo Bair told to find a new club
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Theo Bair has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at AJ Auxerre.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Paul Nardi slips down the pecking order
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Paul Nardi is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
The manager makes an example of Jamal Gonzaga
“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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
A row about effort at AJ Auxerre
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rayan Mandengue was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market14 Jun 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AJ Auxerre people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market14 Jun 2027
“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.
Market14 Jun 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad14 Jun 2027
At 19 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.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
$12.0K on the table at FC Lorient. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market14 Jun 2027
US Orleans 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.
Squad14 Jun 2027
A row about effort at AJ Auxerre
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oussama El Azzouzi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad14 Jun 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Saad Agouzoul commits to AJ Auxerre for another 4 years.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match7 Nov 2026
AJ Auxerre throw away a 2-goal lead
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Olympique de Marseille the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that AJ Auxerre will enjoy reviewing.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Axel Tuanzebe 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.
Match7 Nov 2026
Olympique de Marseille left with the points after a 2‑4 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad9 Nov 2026
14 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad9 Nov 2026
100 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Elisha Owusu
“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 dugout9 Nov 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 2‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at AJ Auxerre training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tony Mendy 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 ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.