The Tours Chronicle
Market7 Sep 2026
Charles Aubry asks to leave Tours
“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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 10 signed and 7 gone
That is the business done at Tours 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Benoît Leclercq 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
FC Nantes tell Tours: Sékou Doucouré is not for sale
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 targets7 Sep 2026
The window shuts on the Ibrahim Halilou Mouhaman deal
Tours ran out of time with Olympique Lyonnais. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Philippe Bertrand 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Paul Gonzalez slips down the pecking order
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Paul Gonzalez is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Tours
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Market7 Sep 2026
Tours bring in an old head
Simon Dia is 34 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.
In brief
- Market The window shut and Christophe Philippe is still in the building
- The dugout Denis Roger knocks on the manager's door
- Market Jean Lemoine leaves for nothing