From our football correspondent
Steady
Match7 Nov 2026
1‑2 against Gornik Zabrze. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.27 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad9 Nov 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 Standard Liege this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Standard Liege training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francesco Acerbi 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Matthieu Epolo
“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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.83, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Nayel Mehssatou was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.54. 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Defences have started doubling up on Francesco Acerbi
8 goals and a season average of 7.30 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Nov 2026
There were 10 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 33. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
28 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Francesco Acerbi 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Marlon Fossey 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.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
167% of the income goes out in wages at Standard Liege
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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.68, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match31 Oct 2026
A 1‑0 win over Westerlo, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings26 Oct 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.
Match24 Oct 2026
1‑1 against Gornik Zabrze, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Grejohn Kyei was at the centre of the description.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
29 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad26 Oct 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 Standard Liege this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Francesco Acerbi, and the manager let it.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Ibrahim Karamoko 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
7.84, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Standard Liege had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Match24 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Waasland-Beveren? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Francesco Acerbi, 38, rolls back the years — 8.09
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.09 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad19 Oct 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Matthieu Epolo is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Adnan Januzaj 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Francesco Acerbi 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.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes of Adnan Januzaj at his very best
Marked 9.27. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Standard Liege.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 19 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match10 Oct 2026
8 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.
Squad12 Oct 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 Standard Liege this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Yann Gboua is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match10 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Marlon Fossey
“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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
7 goals and a season average of 7.28. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
“I did not go to Charleroi to sit and watch. I want to come back to Standard Liege and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
5.11 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match3 Oct 2026
1‑1. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and Standard Liege came through the finding-out well against CSKA Sofia.
Match3 Oct 2026
7 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
A defender's goal wins it for Standard Liege — 7.70
1 for Mohammed El Hankouri, marked 7.70, 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Adnan Januzaj 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 259% of everything Standard Liege earn
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.
Match3 Oct 2026
KAA Gent left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Standard Liege training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pinheiro Caio 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 17 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Francesco Acerbi, 38, rolls back the years — 8.78
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.78 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match26 Sep 2026
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Standard Liege are no longer polite ones.
Squad28 Sep 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 Standard Liege this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Marked 9.00 — 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Grejohn Kyei
“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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Pinheiro Caio 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.33 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match19 Sep 2026
0‑2 against Torino. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 26 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.94 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match19 Sep 2026
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Standard Liege are no longer polite ones.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Adnan Januzaj 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 ratings21 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.34 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Standard Liege training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dennis Ayensa 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 41. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Steeven Assengue out for 34 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Standard Liege will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Leonai Souza 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Ibrahim Karamoko 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.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I did not go to Charleroi to sit and watch. I want to come back to Standard Liege and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Match12 Sep 2026
It needed Timothé Nkada to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against OH Leuven, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Market14 Sep 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Matthieu Epolo’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
The chances came and went for Grejohn Kyei
8 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 33, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Steeven Assengue out for 41 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Standard Liege will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.92 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market7 Sep 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Adnan Januzaj 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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
159% of the income goes out in wages at Standard Liege
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Mohammed El Hankouri 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Pinheiro Caio is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match26 Aug 2026
0‑1 against Westerlo, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 49 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Francesco Acerbi, 38, rolls back the years — 9.30
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.30 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A chastening introduction for Amos Mpanzu — 5.75
It is a hard way to meet a crowd. Marked 5.75 on the day he was handed the shirt, and the important thing now is what the next one looks like.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 24. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Market31 Aug 2026
Sint-Truiden pay $1.3M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Standard Liege training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francesco Acerbi 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.
Squad31 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 Standard Liege this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad24 Aug 2026
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market24 Aug 2026
KV Oostende come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Standard Liege did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 23, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 22 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Francesco Acerbi 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Adnan Januzaj 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Grejohn Kyei. 2‑0 against KV Kortrijk, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Marked 8.48 — 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.43 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad17 Aug 2026
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Maximiliano Caufriez is living that version at Standard Liege, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer from Virtus Entella for René Mitongo 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.
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 Standard Liege this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match15 Aug 2026
2‑3 to KV Oostende, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Standard Liege have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market17 Aug 2026
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. Maximiliano Caufriez has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match8 Aug 2026
Derby days make names, and Francesco Acerbi made his against Anderlecht. 2‑1, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
Match8 Aug 2026
Francesco Acerbi wins it after the whistle should have gone
93 minutes played. Francesco Acerbi found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Anderlecht went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Beat anybody else and it is three points. Beat them and it is a story a city tells for a decade. Standard Liege have their man.
Market10 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Casper Nielsen commits to Standard Liege for another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Tobias Mohr 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 Standard Liege this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market10 Aug 2026
The name of Dennis Ayensa has come up in conversations Standard Liege were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Standard Liege training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francesco Acerbi 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Aug 2026
A move Adnan Januzaj would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Adnan Januzaj is living that version at Standard Liege, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Dimitri Lavalée commits to Standard Liege for another 5 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Marlon Fossey 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“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.
Match1 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Standard Liege have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market3 Aug 2026
49 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.