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.
Gino Caoki 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.
Something was said to Pablo Martinez and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Roger Tamba is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kévin Bérigaud provided it, and the 8.44 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nimes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.23 — 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.
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.
17 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Successful dribbles: 15. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Philippe Laurent, on a 3‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Roger Tamba
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Nimes had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at FC Nantes, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nordin Amrabat 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Olympique Lyonnais have kept their man, and Nimes go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
17 new faces, and Nimes 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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
In brief
The dugoutGreg Houla dropped after a run of poor form