The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Tours will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Marius Savidan and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Apr 2028
David Laurent 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.
Marius Savidan 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. David Laurent 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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Tours has been clear about where Jérôme Hubert stands, which is more than many ever get.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Tours that is a harder question to answer.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Temple Ojinnaka has written the date down.
In brief
The terracesSupporters make their feelings known about Louis Marchand
The dugoutAxel Kedvesi knocks on the manager’s door
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tours can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Denis Martinez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Tours the goodbyes have quietly begun.
David Laurent 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. Thibault Jacquet 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Tours told Edoardo Leone something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against US Creteil in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
12 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.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tours lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Tours, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Denis Martinez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Tours the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David Laurent was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Tours, and it is not being withdrawn.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.17 for the rest of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tours 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 David Laurent was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Tours are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I watch every Tours game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Le Havre AC runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tours have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Tours they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
4 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.
Marius Savidan 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Thibault Jacquet was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mattia Arrigoni is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
David Laurent 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 Thibault Jacquet was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Olympique de Marseille have kept their man, and Tours go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Julien Rémy after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Tours people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The deal that would have taken David Carpentier to US Creteil has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Tours with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Tours have done the hard part with OGC Nice, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tours can pretend not to have heard.
At 20 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David Laurent was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Valenciennes waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tours is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
0‑4 to AC Ajaccio, 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Marius Savidan 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 had been thinking. David Laurent 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.
Tours asked and FC Nantes said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Jérôme Hubert has improved at 30, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Tours can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Tours is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
$680.0K was the most the club would pay and Toulouse FC 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tours this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
54 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tours lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jean-Luc Meyer will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Tours the goodbyes have quietly begun.
14 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David Laurent was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Tours will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Mattia Siviero 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Tours, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Tours. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.