A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AS Saint-Etienne will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AS Saint-Etienne lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AS Saint-Etienne is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
CJ Egan-Riley 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. AS Saint-Etienne told Augustine Boakye something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Sam Mather has his answer from AS Saint-Etienne; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AS Saint-Etienne is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Nobody at AS Saint-Etienne 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.
FC Metz next, and one man in the AS Saint-Etienne dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at AS Saint-Etienne. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“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 AS Saint-Etienne will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Valenciennes waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AS Saint-Etienne is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Saïd Remadnia will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AS Saint-Etienne the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS Saint-Etienne this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. João Ferreira 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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AS Saint-Etienne have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AS Saint-Etienne is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The deal with OGC Nice 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.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
$840.0K was the most the club would pay and Monaco 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.
João Ferreira 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and FC Metz waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AS Saint-Etienne is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Grenoble Foot 38 had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“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 AS Saint-Etienne, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Stade Rennais have kept their man, and AS Saint-Etienne go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer from LB Chateauroux for Yanis Chahid 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.
$1.5M was the most the club would pay and USL Dunkerque 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.
AS Saint-Etienne have gone to RC Strasbourg with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Khalil Liam Kie has agreed terms with Angers SCO for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
CJ Egan-Riley 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 board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AS Saint-Etienne have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 53 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
“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 AS Saint-Etienne, and it is not being withdrawn.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ryan Rodin will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AS Saint-Etienne the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS Saint-Etienne this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 May 2032
João Ferreira 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AS Saint-Etienne lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Théo Eyoum will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AS Saint-Etienne the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. João Ferreira 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.
Nobody at AS Saint-Etienne 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 55 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Two goals and a mark of 8.83 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings1 Mar 2032
Up for the corner, and Pierre Ekwah delivers — 7.61
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Pierre Ekwah scored, was marked 7.61, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AS Saint-Etienne they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Berke Özer 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 João Ferreira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Daniel Borges wants continental football; whether AS Saint-Etienne can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
In brief
Player ratingsJulien Duranville was on a different afternoon to everybody else
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AS Saint-Etienne people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Stade Rennais will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. AS Saint-Etienne were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS Saint-Etienne can pretend not to have heard.
$7.2M was the most the club would pay and Stade Rennais 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.
Berke Özer 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 had been thinking. Andrew Omobamidele 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.14 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
1 for CJ Egan-Riley, marked 7.37, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Andrew Omobamidele wants continental football; whether AS Saint-Etienne can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrew Omobamidele 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.
Minute 86, against AJ Auxerre, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrew Omobamidele 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.
“I watch every AS Saint-Etienne game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RC Lens runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Match29 Nov 2031
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for AS Saint-Etienne. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS Saint-Etienne this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Something was said to CJ Egan-Riley and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“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 AS Saint-Etienne, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Andrew Omobamidele wants continental football; whether AS Saint-Etienne can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. João Ferreira 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.
Sem Westerveld 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS Saint-Etienne this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout29 Sep 2031
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 Patrick Roche left the room before anybody could ask which.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether AS Saint-Etienne can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS Saint-Etienne can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AS Saint-Etienne they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
16 combined actions and 6.81. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
João Ferreira 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 Augustine Boakye was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 6.64, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Himad Abdelli had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and FC Versailles waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AS Saint-Etienne is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
9 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at AS Saint-Etienne has to find a result from somewhere.
“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 AS Saint-Etienne, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from EA Guingamp for Femi Seriki 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.
The clubs have shaken hands with Londrina; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Benjamin Brantlind had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. LOSC Lille have kept their man, and AS Saint-Etienne go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 AS Saint-Etienne, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and RC Strasbourg waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AS Saint-Etienne is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
AS Saint-Etienne have gone to LOSC Lille with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
$2.4M was the most the club would pay and Olympique de Marseille 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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.5M — a club that wants Zuriko Davitashvili enough to be asked twice.
Iliya Gruev 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting CJ Egan-Riley's mistake
Squad9 new faces, and AS Saint-Etienne are still learning each other
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Le Puy Foot 43 had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. AS Saint-Etienne have done the hard part with LB Chateauroux, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The fee is $2.4M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Olympique de Marseille drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS Saint-Etienne can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Quevilly-Rouen for Enzo Mayilla 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS Saint-Etienne this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augustine Boakye was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether AS Saint-Etienne can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS Saint-Etienne this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“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 AS Saint-Etienne know it.
The dugout12 May 2031
CJ Egan-Riley is still being punished for one mistake
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at AS Saint-Etienne, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AS Saint-Etienne will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Andrew Omobamidele 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether AS Saint-Etienne can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
11 goals in 29 games at FC Versailles — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AS Saint-Etienne updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
In brief
Squad10 new faces, and AS Saint-Etienne are still learning each other
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS Saint-Etienne can pretend not to have heard.
Iliya Gruev 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
“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; AS Saint-Etienne are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Bourg-Peronnas had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AS Saint-Etienne have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from Cádiz for Enzo Faty 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.
CJ Egan-Riley and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Jan 2031
Iliya Gruev 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Le Havre AC have kept their man, and AS Saint-Etienne go back to a list with one name crossed off it.