Two goals and a mark of 8.90 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Yves Robert, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.73
A mark of 7.73 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
Position 3, 18 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking 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 Chamois Niortais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 2‑1 win over Nimes, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Émile Laurent was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.25. 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Sofian Bahloul was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.13. 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.
8 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.
“I watch every Chamois Niortais game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Stade Rennais runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
In brief
SquadYves Renard has become a man the manager trusts
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Benoît Marchal’s exile
Player ratingsThe pass was always on for Yves Renard
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Chamois Niortais will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Máximo Seggio is living that version at Chamois Niortais, and it tends to show in the first month.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.97 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Gabriel Aubry 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Chamois Niortais and US Creteil in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Yves Robert, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.91
A mark of 7.91 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chamois Niortais can pretend not to have heard.
Yves Renard 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.
Red Star made Chamois Niortais work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Émile Laurent was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.19. 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.14 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The offer from RC Strasbourg for Denis Pérez 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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Yves Robert did not need any: 8.35, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The phone has started ringing about Charles Dupont again, and this time the name on the line is Casertana. Chamois Niortais are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Didier Paul. 4‑3 against Bourg-Peronnas, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Chamois Niortais and Bourg-Peronnas, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
In brief
Boardroom3 academy players handed senior numbers at Chamois Niortais