Marked for Tyris Dong
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match18 Sep 2027
Dijon taken apart
1‑4 to Amiens SC, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Squad20 Sep 2027
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Dijon will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market20 Sep 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 Dijon can pretend not to have heard.
Squad20 Sep 2027
7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
Brandon Ndezi: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Dijon have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
A defender's goal wins it for Dijon — 7.50
1 for Mamadou Doucouré, marked 7.50, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market20 Sep 2027
Only the photograph left for Tyris Dong
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tyris Dong will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dijon the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 Sep 2027
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Dijon will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market13 Sep 2027
Lenny Lacroix hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dijon can pretend not to have heard.
Market13 Sep 2027
“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.
Market13 Sep 2027
The bid was some way short and Dijon did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets13 Sep 2027
Dijon ran out of time with Paris Saint-Germain. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Transfer targets13 Sep 2027
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Stade de Reims is saying, and nobody at Dijon is enjoying the guessing.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Words exchanged at Dijon
Pedro Maranhão and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Rashad Pelage is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Transfer targets13 Sep 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad23 Aug 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Dijon will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match21 Aug 2027
Still nobody has beaten Dijon
The unbeaten run reaches 12. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Market23 Aug 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 Dijon can pretend not to have heard.
Market23 Aug 2027
Tyris Dong has one foot out of the door
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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ayman Kari commits to Dijon for another 5 years.
Squad23 Aug 2027
A falling-out at Dijon
Pedro Maranhão and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets23 Aug 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.
Player ratings23 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Boardroom23 Aug 2027
Graduation day at Dijon
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Aug 2027
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Dijon will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market9 Aug 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 Dijon can pretend not to have heard.
Match7 Aug 2027
Whatever happens, Dijon do not lose
10 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Market9 Aug 2027
Dijon say no — this time
The offer from Bourg-Peronnas for Tyris Dong was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market9 Aug 2027
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.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
Dijon had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Stade Rennais, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Tempers go at Dijon
Pedro Maranhão 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 Aug 2027
After 7 games, Dijon finally taste it again
The first defeat in 7 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Rodez AF; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Stade Rennais have kept their man, and Dijon go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Jul 2027
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Dijon will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market26 Jul 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 Dijon, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market26 Jul 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Dijon have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Transfer targets26 Jul 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Toulouse FC keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad26 Jul 2027
A falling-out at Dijon
Pedro Maranhão and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets26 Jul 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.
Transfer targets26 Jul 2027
A loan enquiry to Stade Rennais: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout26 Jul 2027
Jilmar knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Dijon, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Looking ahead26 Jul 2027
USL Dunkerque next, and one man in the Dijon dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad19 Jul 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 112 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. LOSC Lille have kept their man, and Dijon go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
Everything agreed with AJ Auxerre, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Words exchanged at Dijon
Pedro Maranhão and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Market19 Jul 2027
Add another name to the list: Bourg-Peronnas have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Tyris Dong. The answer from Dijon has not changed — yet.
Squad19 Jul 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nolan Tabar commits to Dijon for another 3 years.
The dugout19 Jul 2027
The manager makes an example of Waly Diouf
“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 dugout19 Jul 2027
A promise honoured at Dijon
Something was said to Lucas França and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
A loan enquiry to Toulouse FC: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Jun 2027
The knee: Yanis Barka out for 17 days
17 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dijon lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
The offer went to Olympique Lyonnais this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
The deal with Olympique Lyonnais is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Tyris Dong is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad28 Jun 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Lenny Lacroix commits to Dijon for another 4 years.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Olympiacos have kept their man, and Dijon go back to a list with one name crossed off it.