6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Chamois Niortais has to find a result from somewhere.
Flavio Paganelli 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Chamois Niortais, and 2 appearances in 20 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at Chamois Niortais will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Legrand 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Chamois Niortais, and 0 appearances in 19 say he has earned the hearing.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
In brief
Player ratingsOff the bench and decisive: Édouard Berger
4 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Chamois Niortais can tell you which week it ends in.
A season average of 7.00 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Chamois Niortais know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Émile Martin 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.
“I did not go to Stade Lavallois to sit and watch. I want to come back to Chamois Niortais and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 17 matches say the rest.
Nobody at Chamois Niortais will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.87 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.94 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Gabriel Legrand 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jacques Arnaud. 2‑1 against Nimes, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Jacques Arnaud was the best thing in any of them.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jacques Arnaud did not need any: 7.64, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Flavio Paganelli 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.
“I did not go to Paris Saint-Germain to sit and watch. I want to come back to Chamois Niortais and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 8 matches say the rest.
Nobody at Chamois Niortais will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Gabriel Legrand 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christophe Boyer 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 ratings28 Sep 2026
Denis Rémy was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.17. 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.
“I did not go to RC Strasbourg to sit and watch. I want to come back to Chamois Niortais and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 7 matches say the rest.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Marcel Poirier trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Chamois Niortais and Tours in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Jacques Arnaud 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.
Marked 8.61 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Legrand 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.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. Chamois Niortais deserved better, and so did he.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jacques Arnaud signs something — a contract at Chamois Niortais or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The offer from Monaco for Flavio Paganelli was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Legrand 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mathieu Adam 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Nicolas Collet is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Sébastien Guillot has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.