Marked for Logan Costa
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match10 Feb 2027
Real Sociedad go through and Villarreal go home, 0‑0 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Match13 Feb 2027
16 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad15 Feb 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 Villarreal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match13 Feb 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Loan watch15 Feb 2027
The goals keep arriving from Ilias Akhomach’s exile
13 goals in 26 games at Burgos — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Villarreal updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Logan Costa gets it from the manager
“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.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Twelve yards, a goalkeeper guessing, and it still did not go in. He will take the next one, and every soul in the ground will hold their breath.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
7.51, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Villarreal had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match24 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Villarreal do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
A mark of 7.97, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dani Parejo, and the manager let it.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Pau Navarro 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.
Match24 Oct 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad26 Oct 2026
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
Ayoze Pérez in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Villarreal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Loan watch21 Sep 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Villarreal, and 1 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
7.44, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Villarreal had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A smaller club would suit Logan Costa now
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Villarreal 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Sergi Cardona dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Sergi Cardona knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Villarreal, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Logan Costa commits to Villarreal for another 4 years.
Market14 Sep 2026
No place for Arnau Tenas in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Arnau Tenas has his answer from Villarreal; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Match12 Sep 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Logan Costa
“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.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 43. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
At 22 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tani Oluwaseyi. 2‑0 against Athletic Bilbao, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.08, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Alberto Moleiro was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 Villarreal, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Santi Comesaña 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match22 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Osasuna, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Villarreal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Logan Costa 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Sergi Cardona dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Pape Guèye spends the afternoon fouling
Fouls conceded: 6. He was booked, he was fortunate not to be booked twice, and the referee had run out of patience long before the end.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
Álvaro García gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Álvaro García has just signed for Villarreal, and for once the answer mattered.
Market17 Aug 2026
Real Madrid come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Villarreal did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Villarreal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Villarreal
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Market17 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Andrés Vargas is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market17 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Felipe García has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market17 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Enzo Márquez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The ground is getting bigger
The plans are signed off at a capacity of 25443. Decisions like this are judged twenty years later, by people who were not in the room when they were taken.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Logan Costa 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Álex Forés and Villarreal agree another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Ayoze Pérez in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Villarreal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Ilias Akhomach again, and this time the name on the line is Castellón. Villarreal are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Villarreal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Logan Costa 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“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.