Marked for Philippe André
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Millwall this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match29 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Éverton dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Millwall will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Barry Bannan knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Barry Bannan trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Millwall, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Tristan Crama 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Millwall training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Casper De Norre 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 ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad24 Aug 2026
6 new faces, and Millwall are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Market24 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad24 Aug 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Market24 Aug 2026
Experience through the door at Millwall
Éverton arrives at 37 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market17 Aug 2026
Sorrento come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Chamois Niortais did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chamois Niortais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Chamois Niortais
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Market17 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Jean-Baptiste Lefebvre has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market17 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Thomas Garnier has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market17 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Sébastien Barré has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Antoine Henry and Chamois Niortais agree another 3 years.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Pierre Morel 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad3 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.78 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 0 on the scoresheet, 7.32 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Nicolas Lemaire 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.
The terraces3 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 17-year-old it feels ownership of. Alexandre Barbier has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Luc Rodriguez at his very best
Marked 8.18. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Chamois Niortais.