“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Laurent Meunier 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 KV Oostende, and 8 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Adnan Tielemans is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
It needed Laurent Meunier to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Zulte Waregem, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at KV Oostende this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 2‑1 win over Charleroi, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Hans Vanaken was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.49. 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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.13, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Radja Onana 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 want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at KV Oostende hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at KV Oostende 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 KV Oostende and Westerlo in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
A performance of 8.49 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adnan Tielemans 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and KV Oostende are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“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 KV Oostende, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at KV Oostende this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Club Brugge left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adnan Tielemans 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 6.61, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
96 minutes played. Laurent Meunier found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and KV Mechelen went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Laurent Meunier 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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Radja Onana 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.