“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Nimes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Jaílson 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jared Khasa trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Nimes would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Nimes opened the door and nobody walked through it. So Vincent Pirès stays — listed, trained, and available — while both sides mark the days to January on the same calendar.
“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.
In brief
MarketThe clock does Samy Kehli’s negotiating for 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 The request is on a desk at Nimes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Luca Dias reports back to Nimes with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adrien Tamèze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Boca Juniors have kept their man, and Nimes go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Nimes are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
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 Diaby Doucouré is on it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Nimes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nimes can pretend not to have heard.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 3 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Nimes have done the hard part with Monaco, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Nimes asked and Penafiel said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
$5.3M on the table at FC Lorient. 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 clubs have shaken hands with Stade Rennais; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adrien Tamèze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Nimes can tell you which week it ends in.
Nimes asked and Portimonense 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Jacques Thomas has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.99 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jules Kalczynski did not need any: 7.85, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Up for the corner, and Leroy Abanda delivers — 7.68
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Leroy Abanda scored, was marked 7.68, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Jaílson 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. Adrien Tamèze 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.
He is 22 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 17 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Olivier Philippe is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Jared Khasa will call it something else in private.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gustavo Alles was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Luc Clément after 0‑5, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Jared Khasa
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joan Tincres 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.
16 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.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Luc Clément chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Pablo Martinez 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Lenny Colombani is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Luca Dias has improved at 27, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Nimes can tell you which week it ends in.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Nicolas Duval 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.