Marked for Robert Lefèvre
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom8 Jan 2029
Jesús Sanz has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at RC Lens can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Match6 Jan 2029
No end in sight to RC Lens's wait for a win
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at RC Lens has to find a result from somewhere.
Market8 Jan 2029
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Lens they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad8 Jan 2029
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.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Words at RC Lens training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matthieu Udol 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.
Player ratings8 Jan 2029
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad8 Jan 2029
The manager makes an example of Florian Thauvin
“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.
Market8 Jan 2029
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Carlos Rodríguez has his answer from RC Lens; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Squad8 Jan 2029
14 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Jan 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Robert Lefèvre
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. RC Lens lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market10 Jan 2028
Michał Skóraś has left for Sochaux in a $11.2M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Market10 Jan 2028
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Carlos Rodríguez is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
Squad10 Jan 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at RC Lens this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at RC Lens training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carlos Rodríguez 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.
Match8 Jan 2028
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad10 Jan 2028
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Jan 2028
Robert Lefèvre damages knee ligaments — 24 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 24 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.
Match1 Jan 2028
RC Lens win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 92th minute. OGC Nice will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Market3 Jan 2028
The phone has started ringing about Robin Risser again, and this time the name on the line is Atlético Madrid. RC Lens are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad3 Jan 2028
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” RC Lens have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings3 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad3 Jan 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at RC Lens this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Jan 2028
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at RC Lens heard it as anything else.
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
Red Star will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Jovany Ikanga has pre-agreed a move to RC Lens, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Match1 Jan 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Michał Skóraś’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to RC Lens.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad27 Dec 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Robert Lefèvre
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. RC Lens lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad27 Dec 2027
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.
Match25 Dec 2027
5 matches without a win for RC Lens
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around RC Lens are no longer polite ones.
Squad27 Dec 2027
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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match25 Dec 2027
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad20 Dec 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Robert Lefèvre
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. RC Lens lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market20 Dec 2027
RC Lens may not be able to give Robin Risser what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Robin Risser wants continental football; whether RC Lens can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Match18 Dec 2027
The wait goes on for RC Lens
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad20 Dec 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and RC Lens know it.
Squad20 Dec 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at RC Lens this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.