Marked for David Blanc
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad29 May 2028
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Le Havre AC lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad29 May 2028
Felix Mambimbi 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 2028
Rassoul Ndiaye 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 May 2028
The words a physio says slowly. 78 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.
Market1 May 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad1 May 2028
Felix Mambimbi 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Jan 2028
Lionel Mpasi in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Le Havre AC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at Le Havre AC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rassoul Ndiaye 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.
Squad31 Jan 2028
The manager makes an example of Ally Samatta
“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.
Market31 Jan 2028
Mladost Lucani are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Le Havre AC will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad31 Jan 2028
A promise honoured for David Blanc
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Le Havre AC told David Blanc something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Market31 Jan 2028
The Ayumu Seko story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ayumu Seko signs something — a contract at Le Havre AC or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match20 Mar 2027
25 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Match22 Mar 2027
Le Havre AC are in real trouble now
Position 18, 15 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Match20 Mar 2027
0‑4 to AJ Auxerre, 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.
Match20 Mar 2027
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Lionel Mpasi 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Guy Noël Zohouri is a better footballer than he was
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.
Match20 Mar 2027
No clean sheets in sight for Le Havre AC
5 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Squad22 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Rassoul Ndiaye, and the manager let it.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Le Havre AC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Felix Mambimbi 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match7 Nov 2026
6 matches without a win for Le Havre AC
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Le Havre AC are no longer polite ones.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Lionel Mpasi in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Le Havre AC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.