Danylo Sikan 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.
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.
Position 3, 33 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.
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Tristan Degreef did not need any: 7.65, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Danylo Sikan 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 21 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.
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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Anderlecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Anderlecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Laurent Courtois 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.
Nobody at Anderlecht 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Anderlecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
18 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Nobody at Anderlecht 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.
4 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.
Danylo Sikan 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Anderlecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adriano Bertaccini 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.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with KV Oostende the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Anderlecht will enjoy reviewing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Anderlecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 brace, and Danylo Sikan takes the afternoon — 8.64
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Danylo Sikan provided it, and the 8.64 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Danylo Sikan 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Danylo Sikan. 3‑2 against KAA Gent, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Anderlecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adriano Bertaccini 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Anderlecht are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
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.
Moussa Diarra 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.
Danylo Sikan 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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Anderlecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adriano Bertaccini 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Anderlecht, and both men came out saying it was fine.
14 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Sint-Truiden defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
The fee is $6.4M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Lokeren drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Mario Stroeykens, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.84
A mark of 7.84 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Laurent Courtois is living that version at Anderlecht, and it tends to show in the first month.
Anderlecht arrived with $6.4M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Laurent Courtois was one of the reasons people came, and $6.4M does not replace that by itself.
“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 Lokeren, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokeren this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Lokeren training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simon Nainggolan 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.
The phone has started ringing about Timothy Fellaini again, and this time the name on the line is KV Kortrijk. Lokeren are listening politely and promising nothing.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with KV Kortrijk the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Lokeren will enjoy reviewing.
Olympique de Marseille pay $20.2M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Eden Alderweireld 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
Words at Lokeren training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christian Chadli 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.