“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 The request is on a desk at Valenciennes, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Angers SCO for Michele Battaglia was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
A mark of 7.69 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Olympique de Marseille have kept their man, and Valenciennes go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Squad20 Aug 2035
Words at Valenciennes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Édouard Renault 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Bourg-Peronnas waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Valenciennes is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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 The request is on a desk at Valenciennes, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deal with AJ Auxerre is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Amed Aiki 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.
$160.0K was the most the club would pay and Stade de Reims were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. FC Lorient have kept their man, and Valenciennes go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Salioubarro Badji was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Valenciennes, another week without a signature from Tiago Gonçalves.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Red Star waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Valenciennes is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Valenciennes have done the hard part with SC Bastia, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Pablo Minissale 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.
Valenciennes offered $23.0K; SM Caen said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Valenciennes asked and Olympique Lyonnais said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Malone Grailard will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Valenciennes the goodbyes have quietly begun.
$23.0K on the table at SM Caen. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad2 Jul 2035
Words at Valenciennes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Salioubarro Badji 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.
Peyo Sutherland and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Valenciennes have made the call to Stade de Reims. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“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 Valenciennes, and it is not being withdrawn.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Valenciennes have done the hard part with SM Caen, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Amed Aiki and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Words at Valenciennes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Édouard Renault 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Red Star waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Valenciennes is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valenciennes can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valenciennes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Édouard Renault was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valenciennes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A loan enquiry to Stade de Reims: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Édouard Renault was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A loan enquiry to AS Saint-Etienne: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valenciennes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Amed Aiki and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Édouard Renault was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Not a month, not a run of form — a whole season of being the best 21-year-old anybody in this division could put on a pitch. This is the honour that gets mentioned for the rest of his career.
Amed Aiki 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Benjamin Price was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Jacob Cook has written the date down.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Valenciennes, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
BoardroomThe Valenciennes production line keeps running
Words at Valenciennes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Édouard Renault 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.
Danyl Chagour 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Valenciennes, another week without a signature from Bassirou Ndiaye.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Stéphane David trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
50 points from position 6. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valenciennes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8.25. 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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout30 Apr 2035
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Vincent Lefebvre left the room before anybody could ask which.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tiago Gonçalves trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Zak Swanson 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.
Squad23 Apr 2035
Words at Valenciennes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Édouard Renault 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Valenciennes will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Diego Burgos’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Valenciennes needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Bassirou Ndiaye has written the date down.
In brief
The terracesSupporters make their feelings known about Michele Battaglia
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Stéphane David did not need any: 7.94, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Stéphane David. 2‑1 against FC Rouen, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Michele Battaglia has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Marked 8.13 — 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.
Squad9 Apr 2035
Words at Valenciennes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Salioubarro Badji 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Amed Aiki and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad2 Apr 2035
Words at Valenciennes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Édouard Renault 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.
The young player of the month award goes to a 19-year-old at Valenciennes who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Nobody at Valenciennes will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valenciennes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad19 Mar 2035
Words at Valenciennes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Salioubarro Badji 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.
Squad19 Mar 2035
8 new faces, and Valenciennes 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.
Something was said to Meïvyn Agesilas and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Vincent Lefebvre after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Édouard Renault was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Alexandr Burkov and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The dugout12 Mar 2035
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Vincent Lefebvre left the room before anybody could ask which.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Valenciennes pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Stéphane David did not need any: 7.66, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.65 for the rest of it.
Zak Swanson and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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.
At 19 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.
At 21 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Valenciennes will try very hard not to make too much of it.
“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 Valenciennes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Amed Aiki 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 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.
Boardroom26 Feb 2035
94% of the income goes out in wages at Valenciennes
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Valenciennes will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
He is 20, and nobody at Valenciennes signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Bassirou Ndiaye will call it something else in private.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mathieu Dufour and Valenciennes agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“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 Valenciennes, and it is not being withdrawn.
5 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valenciennes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Amed Aiki 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.
Valenciennes asked and Paris Saint-Germain said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Emmanuel Richard and Valenciennes agree another 3 years.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Valenciennes had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at LOSC Lille, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The offer went to FC Metz this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Valenciennes asked and AS Saint-Etienne said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad8 Jan 2035
Words at Valenciennes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Édouard Renault 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.
At 19 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Valenciennes will try not to make too much of it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Valenciennes they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Amed Aiki 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Stéphane David has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
A 2‑0 win over Paris 13 Atletico, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Marked 8.11 — 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Benjamin Price was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Valenciennes are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Vincent Lefebvre on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Jacob Cook's mistake
25 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad11 Dec 2034
A muscle injury sidelines Malang Gomes for 18 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Valenciennes will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Amed Aiki and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Dec 2034
Words at Valenciennes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Édouard Renault 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Valenciennes, another week without a signature from Tiago Gonçalves.
The dugout11 Dec 2034
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Vincent Lefebvre to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
SquadValenciennes are still strangers to each other
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings4 Dec 2034
Up for the corner, and Mabrouk Rouaï delivers — 7.69
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Mabrouk Rouaï scored, was marked 7.69, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Édouard Renault and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Valenciennes will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Benjamin Price was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Amed Aiki and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad20 Nov 2034
Words at Valenciennes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Édouard Renault 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.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against EA Guingamp in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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 Raymond Louis is on it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Peyo Sutherland is living that version at Valenciennes, and it tends to show in the first month.
Paris FC will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Domenico Tortoriello has pre-agreed a move to Valenciennes, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad9 Oct 2034
Words at Valenciennes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Édouard Renault 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.
Stéphane David and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Valenciennes has been clear about where Salioubarro Badji stands, which is more than many ever get.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valenciennes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Valenciennes ran out of time with Stade Rennais. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Olympique de Marseille have kept their man, and Valenciennes go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Arnaud Carpentier has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Valenciennes have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad11 Sep 2034
Adrián Slávik 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.
At 18 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Adrián Slávik's mistake
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Malang Gomes will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Valenciennes the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valenciennes can pretend not to have heard.
Rodez AF have accepted the money. What Valenciennes do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Player ratings4 Sep 2034
Stéphane David, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.64
A mark of 7.64 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings4 Sep 2034
Up for the corner, and Malang Gomes delivers — 7.76
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Malang Gomes scored, was marked 7.76, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valenciennes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 14 arrived, 13 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The offer went to Stade Rennais this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
$1.1M was the most the club would pay and Toulouse FC were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dylan Jams will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Valenciennes the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Malone Grailard 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.
“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.
Squad27 Mar 2034
Alix Bablée 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.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Valenciennes, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Valenciennes will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout27 Mar 2034
The manager has not finished forgetting Yann Martin's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.