Marked for Jérôme Charles
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match10 Jan 2032
The wait goes on for Tours
21 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.
Player ratings12 Jan 2032
Successful dribbles: 45. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad12 Jan 2032
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jérôme Charles
17 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.
Match10 Jan 2032
Tours cannot find the net
10 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.
Match12 Jan 2032
Tours sink to position 17
9 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market12 Jan 2032
Mehdi Tlili 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 Tours can pretend not to have heard.
Squad12 Jan 2032
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.
Squad12 Jan 2032
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nathaniel Adjei 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.
Squad12 Jan 2032
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Karamoko Keïta, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match3 Jan 2032
20 matches without a win for Tours
The run now stands at 20, and the questions being asked around Tours are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings5 Jan 2032
Successful dribbles: 47. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad5 Jan 2032
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jérôme Charles
24 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.
Boardroom5 Jan 2032
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Match3 Jan 2032
9 matches without a goal for Tours
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 9 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Market5 Jan 2032
“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.
Squad5 Jan 2032
Tempers go at Tours
Benoît Fernandez 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.
Squad5 Jan 2032
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrick Philippe 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.
Squad5 Jan 2032
The manager's exit leaves Nathaniel Adjei exposed
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Nathaniel Adjei is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match27 Dec 2031
19 matches without a win for Tours
The run now stands at 19, and the questions being asked around Tours are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings29 Dec 2031
Successful dribbles: 38. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad29 Dec 2031
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jérôme Charles
31 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.
The terraces29 Dec 2031
Anger at Tours spills outside the ground
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.
Match27 Dec 2031
Tours cannot find the net
8 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.
Boardroom29 Dec 2031
Pressure builds in the Tours boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market29 Dec 2031
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.
Squad29 Dec 2031
Patrick Philippe 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.
Squad29 Dec 2031
Tempers go at Tours
Jean Simplice Mbang 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.