Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason ES Setif will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Abdoulaye Niakaté is living that version at ES Setif, and it tends to show in the first month.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Nancy have kept their man, and ES Setif go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
1‑2 to JS Saoura, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Ahmed Touba left the room before anybody could ask which.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tarek Bousseder, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at ES Setif training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kheir Eddine Toual 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. ES Setif will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Al Wahda is saying, and nobody at ES Setif is enjoying the guessing.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
ES Setif close the window on a squad of their own making
21 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 number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $568.8K — a club that wants Chemseddine Bekkouche enough to be asked twice.
$320.0K on the table at JS Saoura. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
ES Setif offered $530.0K; ASO Chlef said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Adam Ounas is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
That is the business done at Free State Stars 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Percy Billiat is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Sabelo Motsa 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.
Gift Mphela 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Siyanda Khumalo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
$420.0K 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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Free State Stars people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Supporters turn on the $420.0K sale of Kermit Khune
He is going to Bloemfontein Celtic, the club has $420.0K 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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $35.0K — a club that wants Alwande Booysen enough to be asked twice.
Andile Jali 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.
$33.0K on the table at Golden Arrows. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
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.
Free State Stars offered $33.0K; Golden Arrows said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The phone has started ringing about Mandla Mothiba again, and this time the name on the line is ES Setif. Free State Stars are listening politely and promising nothing.
In brief
SquadWords at Free State Stars training over how hard people work