The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valenciennes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom30 Apr 2035
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Valenciennes
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Valenciennes they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
In brief
SquadIbrahim Cissé falls out with a teammate over standards
The words a physio says slowly. 54 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.20 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Daou Diomandé 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Valenciennes know it.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valenciennes can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
Promotion, confirmed and mathematical, and a town that will not sleep much tonight. Whatever else this season had in it, it ends a division higher than it began.
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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Dijon will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Nicolas Garnier has just signed for Dijon, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dijon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Promotion, confirmed and mathematical, and a town that will not sleep much tonight. Whatever else this season had in it, it ends a division higher than it began.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Valenciennes will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Callum Lang 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.
Squad29 May 2034
Words at Valenciennes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ibrahim Cissé 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Faitout Maouassa has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Valenciennes have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Valenciennes would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dijon they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dijon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eric Dier 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 words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dijon is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dijon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at Dijon training over how hard people work
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dijon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dijon they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
101 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dijon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Alidu Seidu 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.
In brief
SquadEric Dier falls out with a teammate over standards
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dijon they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dijon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alidu Seidu 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dijon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Jan 2034
Alidu Seidu 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Dijon will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dijon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings2 Jan 2034
Jarell Paisley was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.