Dedryck Witsel

Centre Forward - Lokeren
10 Jun 2027
Thursday
Process

Marked for Dedryck Witsel

23 Edition

The Lokeren Chronicle

4 Jan 2027
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Thomas Breton

Successful dribbles: 40. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

Market

Pedro Xavier hands in a written request

“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lokeren can pretend not to have heard.

Market

Club Brugge 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.

Player ratings

Both of them Yannick Fellaini's — 8.30

2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.30, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.

Match

Lokeren refuse to drop out of the race

Position 3, 42 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.

Squad

The season belongs to Yannick Fellaini

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 Lokeren have had the benefit of it.

Squad

Dedryck Witsel: that is not what I was promised

“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Lokeren have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.

Squad

Yannick Fellaini is in the form of his life

A season average of 7.34 with 16 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.

Squad

Thomas Breton 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.

In brief

Back issues
6 Edition

The Lokeren Chronicle

7 Sep 2026
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Market

Lokeren turn down Anderlecht for Yannick Fellaini

The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Thomas Breton

Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

Squad

Kevin Witsel keeps Lokeren in it on his own

Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.

Market

Dedryck Witsel hands in a written request

“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lokeren can pretend not to have heard.

Squad

Tempers go at Lokeren

Thomas Breton 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.

Squad

Words at Lokeren training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lois Boyata 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.

Match

Pedro Xavier sends Lokeren past KAA Gent

It finished 1‑0, and it was Pedro Xavier’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Lokeren.

Squad

The manager makes an example of Simon De Bruyne

“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 ratings

The afternoon belonged to Pedro Xavier

7.74, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Lokeren had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.

In brief