A brace, and Gabriel Adam takes the afternoon — 8.52
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gabriel Adam provided it, and the 8.52 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Emmanuel Blanchard 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 Tours and Stade Brestois in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
A performance of 8.82 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings18 Feb 2030
Guillaume Noël was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.47. 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.
Squad18 Feb 2030
Idris Bounaas 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.
In brief
SquadPierre Moreau has become a man the manager trusts
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.
Squad4 Feb 2030
Pierre Giraud 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Pierre Moreau in the middle of it, and Le Havre AC unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Marked 8.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Emmanuel Blanchard 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
The offer from LOSC Lille for Pierre Giraud 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 ratings7 Jan 2030
A brace, and Pierre Giraud takes the afternoon — 8.56
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Pierre Giraud provided it, and the 8.56 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Tours have had the benefit of it.
“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.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Riccardo Gaiola has just signed for Tours, and for once the answer mattered.
Add another name to the list: Nimes have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Nahuel Olmedo. The answer from Tours has not changed — yet.
Emmanuel Blanchard 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pierre Giraud 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.
Marked 8.98 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings19 Nov 2029
Pierre Giraud was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.96. 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 ratings19 Nov 2029
Gabriel Adam was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. 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.
A brace, and Pierre Giraud takes the afternoon — 7.97
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Pierre Giraud provided it, and the 7.97 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Tours and Toulouse FC in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Pierre Giraud 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.
Nobody at Tours will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Chamois Niortais will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Tours were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Two goals and a mark of 8.94 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
13 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Chamois Niortais tried to reorganise, Tours did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings15 Oct 2029
Pierre Moreau was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.01. 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.
“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.
Emmanuel Blanchard 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pierre Giraud 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.
12 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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 Oct 2029
Pierre Giraud 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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Shots: 4. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Marked 5.62. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Tanguy Nianzou had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Olympique de Marseille were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Player ratings24 Sep 2029
A brace, and Pierre Denis takes the afternoon — 8.08
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Pierre Denis provided it, and the 8.08 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two goals and a mark of 7.73 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Emmanuel Blanchard 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.
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.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Pierre Giraud 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jean-Guy Akpa Akpro has just signed for Tours, and for once the answer mattered.
The chase for Sidi Cissé ended with $1.6M changing hands and AS Nancy out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Pierre Moreau signs something — a contract at Tours or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
1‑1 against Union Berlin, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Martin Ponsot: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tours have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Emmanuel Blanchard 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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 Feb 2029
Pierre Giraud 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Emmanuel Blanchard will call it something else in private.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
7 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
38 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 72 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Marc Richard. 2‑0 against AJ Auxerre, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Shots: 7. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
2‑1 against VfB Stuttgart, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 79 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Pierre Giraud 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings18 Dec 2028
Guillaume Noël was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.16. 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 ratings18 Dec 2028
Tanguy Nianzou was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. 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.
3‑2 against AIK, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Noa Boutin was at the centre of the description.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Noa Boutin scored, was marked 7.44, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
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.
“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 3 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
0‑2 against Anderlecht. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
The terraces13 Nov 2028
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 9 of the 36 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Tanguy Nianzou 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. François Paul 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.
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.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Pierre Giraud 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.
“I watch every Tours game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Picerno runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 71 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
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.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Pierre Giraud 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.
It finished 3‑1, and it was Pierre Moreau’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Tours.
Player ratings4 Sep 2028
Pierre Moreau was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.34. 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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 78 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with AJ Auxerre the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Tours will enjoy reviewing.
“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.
François Berger 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Thomas Renaud has improved at 32, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.