The RC Lens Herald
Player ratings18 Sep 2028
Nobody could get near Florian Thauvin
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market18 Sep 2028
Only the photograph left for Karl-Johan Johnsson
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Karl-Johan Johnsson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Lens the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Tempers go at RC Lens
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Carlos Rodríguez 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.
Match16 Sep 2028
Jose Moreno sends RC Lens past Stade Lavallois
It finished 1‑0, and it was Jose Moreno’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to RC Lens.
Player ratings18 Sep 2028
One of those days for Jose Moreno
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.05, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad18 Sep 2028
The manager makes an example of Adrian Svanbäck
“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.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Ruben Aguilar dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Market18 Sep 2028
Experience through the door at RC Lens
Thorgan Mertens arrives at 34 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
In brief
- The terraces The spotlight tightens on Thorgan Mertens
- Player ratings Nothing got past Saud Abdulhamid
- Market Benoît Lefebvre leaves for nothing