Marked for Jérôme Mathieu
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
Jérôme Mathieu damages knee ligaments — 14 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
Match10 Oct 2026
Still nobody has beaten Tours
The unbeaten run reaches 11. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Henri Le Gall 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Joseph Blanc
“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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.30 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Thomas Renard was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.05. 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 ratings12 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.05 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Match10 Oct 2026
No time for Sochaux to settle
The goal that put Sochaux ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Tours equalised, 1 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
Squad12 Oct 2026
7 new faces, and Tours 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 40. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Jérôme Mathieu damages knee ligaments — 21 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
10 unbeaten for Tours
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 10 matches without defeat is a foundation Tours did not have in the autumn.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Yann Bernard 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 Tours this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Henri Le Gall 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A move Marc-Olivier Kehi would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Marc-Olivier Kehi is living that version at Tours, and it tends to show in the first month.
The terraces5 Oct 2026
At 22 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 ratings5 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.12 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Loan watch5 Oct 2026
“I watch every Tours game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RC Lens runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Sep 2026
Jérôme Mathieu damages knee ligaments — 28 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
No mercy from Tours
AC Ajaccio will want this one forgotten quickly: 6‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Tours were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Match28 Sep 2026
Tours up to position 1
20 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A brace, and Yann Bernard takes the afternoon — 9.23
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Yann Bernard provided it, and the 9.23 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from David Dupuy at 20 — 7.64
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. David Dupuy did not need any: 7.64, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Up for the corner, and Robert Roche delivers — 7.33
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Robert Roche scored, was marked 7.33, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Match26 Sep 2026
Tours make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Tours have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Henri Le Gall 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Tours and AC Ajaccio in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
In brief
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Squad
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
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The terraces
Tours supporters have found a favourite in David Dupuy
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Player ratings
One of those days for Henri Maillard
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 40. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Jérôme Mathieu damages knee ligaments — 35 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Match16 Sep 2026
Tours through in the cup
A 1‑0 win over Olympique Lyonnais, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match16 Sep 2026
Noan Géraux wins it after the whistle should have gone
117 minutes played. Noan Géraux found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Olympique Lyonnais went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A brace, and David Roche takes the afternoon — 8.63
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. David Roche provided it, and the 8.63 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Noan Géraux, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.69
A mark of 7.69 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Match19 Sep 2026
Still nobody has beaten Tours
The unbeaten run reaches 8. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad21 Sep 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thomas Renard 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Jérôme Mathieu damages knee ligaments — 42 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
Market14 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 Tours, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Henri Le Gall 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Whatever happens, Tours do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Henri Maillard at his very best
Marked 8.03. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Tours.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I did not go to RC Lens to sit and watch. I want to come back to Tours and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Noan Géraux 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
It needed Henri Maillard to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Nimes, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.