The Lokeren Chronicle
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Timothy Lukaku runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 35. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match1 Aug 2026
A hiding for Lokeren
Beaten 0‑3 by KV Oostende, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Market3 Aug 2026
Benevento come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Lokeren did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market3 Aug 2026
Vinícius Farias wants more than Lokeren are offering
“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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Ipswich Town join the queue for Kevin Castagne
Add another name to the list: Ipswich Town have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Kevin Castagne. The answer from Lokeren has not changed — yet.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Timothy Castagne 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 Lokeren this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Vinícius Farias 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Timothy Castagne
“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.
Boardroom3 Aug 2026
Nobody left the Lokeren dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
In brief
- Squad Christian Kompany knocks on the manager’s door
- Market No place for Yannick Lukaku in the plan