Marked for Mathieu Barbier
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad15 Nov 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Mathieu Barbier
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Monaco lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout15 Nov 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market15 Nov 2027
Bradel Kiwa has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Monaco they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad15 Nov 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 Monaco this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Loan watch15 Nov 2027
“I watch every Monaco game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at AJ Auxerre runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout15 Nov 2027
Denis Zakaria gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Denis Zakaria is on it.
The dugout15 Nov 2027
Taiwo Awoniyi asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market15 Nov 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Vanderson’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad15 Nov 2027
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Monaco would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad8 Nov 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Mathieu Barbier damages knee ligaments — 23 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Match6 Nov 2027
3‑0, and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Monaco tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Match2 Nov 2027
Monaco beaten on the continent
0‑2 against Real Madrid, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.53 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad8 Nov 2027
11 goals and a season average of 7.25 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
A masterclass from Vanderson
Marked 8.30 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Tempers go at Monaco
Stanis Idumbo 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.
The dugout8 Nov 2027
No place for Yacine Adli on the big day
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Monaco pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad1 Nov 2027
Mathieu Barbier damages knee ligaments — 30 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Both of them Edan Diop's — 8.20
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.20, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match30 Oct 2027
Another one collected away from home
8 on the bounce on the road for Monaco. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Riyad Mahrez, 36, rolls back the years — 8.31
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.31 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The dugout1 Nov 2027
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Monaco have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match30 Oct 2027
Monaco make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Monaco have 3 straight wins of it.
Loan watch1 Nov 2027
“I did not go to FC Metz to sit and watch. I want to come back to Monaco and fight for my place.” 4 appearances in 19 matches say the rest.
The terraces1 Nov 2027
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.