Marked for Radja Tielemans
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Aug 2026
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. KV Oostende lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from PSV for Lois Witsel 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Eden Doku hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what KV Oostende can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Mousa Mertens 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Mousa Mertens
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market24 Aug 2026
He is 19, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
95 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. KV Oostende lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer from Ajax for Mousa Batshuayi 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Lois Witsel takes the afternoon — 8.52
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Lois Witsel provided it, and the 8.52 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Radja Tielemans 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Mousa Batshuayi scored one and made one — 7.93
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.93, and 2 involvements.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Dedryck De Bruyne 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 Aug 2026
103 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. KV Oostende lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer from Club Brugge for Mousa Mertens 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Ajax have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mousa Batshuayi. The answer from KV Oostende has not changed — yet.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market10 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at KV Oostende heard it as anything else.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Youri Courtois and KV Oostende agree another 5 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Radja Tielemans 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Jan Vertonghen 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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.48 on the card, and the KV Oostende support went home talking about one name.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match1 Aug 2026
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Youri Courtois will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at KV Oostende escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A brace, and Youri Courtois takes the afternoon — 7.83
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Youri Courtois provided it, and the 7.83 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market3 Aug 2026
Youri Courtois wants to know where this is going
“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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Axel De Ketelaere has come up in conversations KV Oostende were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Mousa Mertens 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Radja Tielemans
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Match1 Aug 2026
It finished 3‑3, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.