Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lokeren will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Kevin Vanaken 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Kevin De Bruyne has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
90 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lokeren lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
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.
141 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lokeren lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Michaël Heylen 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
8 new faces, and Lokeren 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.
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.
Kevin Vanaken 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.
Add another name to the list: Westerlo have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jason Onana. The answer from Lokeren has not changed — yet.
Kevin Vanaken 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.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Souleymane Coulibaly from Real Bamako for $1.5M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The phone has started ringing about Kevin Januzaj again, and this time the name on the line is Ajax. Lokeren are listening politely and promising nothing.
Leander Castagne 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 Lokeren and KV Oostende in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Lokeren training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christian Witsel 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Thorgan Mignolet has his answer from Lokeren; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
In brief
The terracesThe stands have heard the Kevin Januzaj talk too