Marked for Stéphane Leroux
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad22 Feb 2027
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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Édouard Pons 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.
Loan watch22 Feb 2027
“I watch every Tours game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RC Strasbourg runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad22 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Rémi Rolland
“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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Quentin Bena knocks on the manager's door
“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.
Loan watch22 Feb 2027
The goals keep arriving from Raymond Garcia’s exile
3 goals in 25 games at Torres — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Tours updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AC Ajaccio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Market1 Feb 2027
Bourg-Peronnas are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. AC Ajaccio will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market1 Feb 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market1 Feb 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Tours, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market1 Feb 2027
“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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Hilan Hamzaoui Slimani has just signed for Tours, and for once the answer mattered.
Loan watch1 Feb 2027
“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 Tours, and 6 appearances in 21 say he has earned the hearing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Nov 2026
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AC Ajaccio lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Andy Delort in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AC Ajaccio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match7 Nov 2026
Stade Lavallois left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Sep 2026
94 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AC Ajaccio lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market7 Sep 2026
“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 AC Ajaccio, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market7 Sep 2026
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Bourg-Peronnas moved on, Jean-David Uras reports back to AC Ajaccio, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
The AC Ajaccio board want somebody sold
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Andy Delort 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad31 Aug 2026
The words a physio says slowly. 73 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match29 Aug 2026
Tours make it 4 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Tours have 4 straight wins of it.
Squad31 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 Tours this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market31 Aug 2026
The deal that would have taken Stéphane Leroux to AC Ajaccio 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Three points for Tours, 2‑1 the final word against Clermont Foot in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.