Senny Mayulu, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.16
A mark of 8.16 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
461 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
The unbeaten run reaches 9. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Angers SCO close the window on a squad of their own making
3 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Mouscron keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
Angers SCO asked and Tigre said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
At 20 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Jordan Lefort 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Haris Belkebla was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Position 5, 26 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marius Savidan will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Angers SCO the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Jordan Lefort 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Angers SCO training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Haris Belkebla 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 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Louis Mouton 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Haris Belkebla was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Olympique Lyonnais; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
A goal on 87 minutes turned three points into one and a good afternoon into an argument about game management that will run until Saturday.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Lilian Raolisoa's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Angers SCO, another week without a signature from Benoît Lopez.
At 21 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Louis Mouton 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.
Marked 7.03 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Angers SCO had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Philippe Garcia was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Angers SCO dressing room was either.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Jean Carlos Becerra is 33 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against AJ Auxerre in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nobody at Angers SCO is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Noah Nadje had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 8 signed and 6 gone
That is the business done at Angers SCO until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Louis Mouton 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 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Yahya Jlidi, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 7.92
A mark of 7.92 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
$4.0M was the most the club would pay and Monaco were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Benoît Lopez has, at Angers SCO, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Angers SCO 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 Angers SCO this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Haris Belkebla was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Antoine Nicolas provided it, and the 8.39 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: AJ Auxerre keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Chamois Niortais and Dijon in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Antoine Lambert was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.82. 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.
Angers SCO paid $310.0K and Chamois Niortais took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Arnaud Duval was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
$17.5M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
David Amegnaglo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.04
A mark of 8.04 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
He is going to Olympique Lyonnais, the club has $17.5M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Chamois Niortais have paid $2.5M for David Amegnaglo, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.85 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Antoine Nicolas. 3‑2 against Bourg-Peronnas, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Westerlo have accepted the money. What Chamois Niortais do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Chamois Niortais people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Pontedera had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.96 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Chamois Niortais have done the hard part with FC Nantes, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.