L’Équipe report that Premier League side West Ham United are currently hot on AS Monaco full-back Djibril Sidibé.
Last summer, Atletico Madrid were interested in the French World Cup winner, for a deal worth around €25m, but with the signing of Kieran Trippier, that pursuit is well and truly over.
West Ham have enquired for the ex-Lille man recently, but he sits as option #2 on their shortlist, with Monaco’s asking price now just €15m excluding bonuses.
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L’Équipe report that Ligue 1 duo Rennes and Brest have both made bids to French 2nd division side Auxerre for 21-year-old midfielder Lamine Fomba.
The offers were understood to have been worth between €2m and €3m for the youngster, under contract until 2022 with AJA, who have rejected both bids.
This does not mean that the story is over though, as Auxerre had told the player he could leave this summer.
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Speaking in an interview with RMC, Italian midfielder Marco Verratti admitted that he was excited about playing alongside Ander Herrera.
“Ander is an experienced player. He has played for a long time in a very tough league, the Premier League. He plays with a lot of intensity. Technically, he plays simply. He’s a superb player. He is going to help us a lot this season. The club have made a superb signing.”
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RMC report that Ligue 1 side AS Monaco are losing highly-rated central midfield talent Han-Noah Massengo, after the player requested to depart.
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The club of his choosing is Championship club Bristol City, who have found an agreement with the Principality side for €8m + a 20% sell-on percentage clause.
Massengo will undergo a medical with Bristol City tomorrow, according to the outlet in question’s chief reporter.
The news comes as a crushing blow to the ASM fanbase, who delighted at the 18-year-old’s cameos under Thierry Henry’s reign, both in the Champions’ League and during the 2018/19 league campaign.
The following article is extracted from Get French Football News’s 200,000 word guide to the world of French football, The Get French Football News 100 which focused on ranking individuals’ performances over the course of 2018 as a calendar year. To download the whole guide, click here.
The following piece was written in December 2018 and published on the 1st January 2019. Ismaila Sarr was ranked 33rd in the 2017 edition and ranked 30th in our index out of French football’s 100 best players in this year’s Get French Football News 100.
It has been another year of progression for Ismaila Sarr. The Rennes forward has steadily built on the promise he originally showed at Metz, before his move to Brittany in the summer of 2017 and now has the eyes of Europe on him after some standout performances and wonderful goals. The start of 2018 saw Sarr return from a lengthy period out injured, as he successfully put behind him a slightly frustrating start to his Rennes career, to finish the season strongly. Under then Rennes coach Sabri Lamouchi, Sarr was deployed in a variety of positions but seemed to find himself most often in a centre forward role.
Whilst he performed admirably there, it certainly is not a position which lends itself to the maximisation of his best attributes and he often looked isolated or was forced to drop too deep at times. There is no doubt that Sarr’s long-term future is instead in a wider position, the left-wing in particular, even if his dexterity facilitates his playing occasionally on the right. In those wide areas, he can fully unleash his most dangerous attribute; his pace. With or without the ball at his feet, Sarr is one of the quickest in the division and with a genuine love for taking players on, marking him as a daunting prospect for Ligue 1’s defenders.
His agent Thierno Seydi spoke in the summer, “he is very fast with excellent technique. He has the same qualities of (Ousmane) Dembélé of Barcelona (and also formerly of Rennes)”. Whilst his desire to run with the ball is encouraging, developments are required in terms of decision-making as too often Sarr finds himself running down a blind alley or struggles to make the correct decision at the right time. Over the course of the year it has been pleasing to see Sarr acknowledge this and come the close of 2018, there have been dramatic improvements.
It is also easy to forget that Sarr is still only 20-years-old and in just his third season of professional football, so to be playing at the high level that he is serves to annunciate his quality. After finishing the 2017/18 season strongly, helping Rennes to a 5th place finish and qualification for the Europa League, Sarr, as part of the Senegalese squad, headed out to Russia for the World Cup.
Despite Senegal cruelly being denied a chance of progressing to the next stage, due to an inferior discipline record and some questionable play towards the end of the Japan vs Poland game, Sarr still found time to attract glowing praise for his performances. His pace and power caught the eye of scouts from Barcelona and Juventus. Rennes successfully warded off interest in the summer from all potential suitors, however their start to the 2018/19 season was something of a struggle. Sarr remained a bright spot in an ever-increasingly muddled squad.
Goals against Angers, a classic burst down the left-wing before cutting inside and curling an effort into the far top corner, and Marseille, a poacher’s finish, pouncing on a goalkeeping mistake, gave further evidence that he was becoming more clinical in front of goal. He has already matched last season’s goal-scoring tally in the first half of the current campaign. It is the variety of goals that Sarr scores which is impressive. In addition to the aforementioned efforts: runs into the box followed by low composed finishes, delayed runs into the box to lose his marker before firing in and wonderful curling efforts from outside the area.
There are not many areas of the pitch from which he cannot score it seems. With Europa League football came a new audience for Sarr to impress and he has taken the opportunity with both hands. As Rennes just about progressed from their group, the only French team to achieve that this season, Sarr was without doubt the shining light. Few teams could cope with him and it was to his credit that UEFA included him in their Europa League Breakthrough Team of the Group Stages.
This was no doubt helped by a goal of the tournament contender against Jablonec. Collecting the ball on the left, he cut inside and played a one-two with Benjamin André before smashing home the return pass on the volley into the top corner from 20 yards. The finish was sublime, the power was immense, but the technique to hit the high bouncing ball that well was something else.
He followed that up with another wonder strike against Astana in the final group game hitting a powerful finish, again into the top corner, from 25 yards out this time. Finishing the year strongly with noticeably improved performances, under new Rennes coach Julien Stéphan, has meant that for the third time in his short career to date, Sarr is facing a barrage of interest from some of the biggest team’s across Europe. Arsenal are reportedly the latest side to join the queue, forcing Rennes to indicate they would not entertain offers less than €30m. If his performances continue in their recent manner, that valuation will only increase at a rapid rate in 2019.
R.A.
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Speaking in an interview with RMC, 34-year-old PSG central defender Thiago Silva discussed the future and pressure on manager Thomas Tuchel.
“We know that in football, only results count. If you do good work and you do not get the results, the criticism will come. We are used to it. Even our coach, who is very intelligent, has understood the situation well. We are working well but there are other teams with the same aim. After Manchester, people criticised our coaching staff a lot, especially our head coach. He did all the preparation, gave us all the information but after that, it is us, the players, who need to be in place. If we play badly in a match, that is our fault. Of course the coach is there too, but at 80% or 90%, it is up to us to do the work. Sometimes the criticisms are personal, and that, that is not good. If it is to do with the playing style or the system, even if we do not agree, we could listen. The coach is intelligent, he speaks to us about this a lot. He asks us to remain concentrated on our play.”
“He understands everything. He speaks very good French. Papus (Camara) also translates sometimes. When the coach is not sure, he starts to speak English because he feels more comfortable doing that. Everyone understands him very well. If things aren’t working well, then a team has figured out how to neutralise our playing style, like Rennes did. They played deep, tried to play on the counter. They entered our penalty box two or three times and scored two goals. It is inexplicable but the Rennes guys played the match they needed to play. They deserved to win. We have to accept this defeat and work more to come back.”
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As previously announced, Brazilian attacker Neymar has not travelled with the PSG 1st team squad this evening to Metz for their Ligue 1 encounter to occur later today.
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RMC report that Sporting Director Leonardo however has made the trip, suggesting that he will not be involved in any serious transfer negotiations, at least for tonight.
Marcin Bulka starts his 1st professional game in goal for Les Parisiens tonight, as does 17-year-old attacker Adil Aouchiche.
PSG XI vs Metz: Bulka – Dagba, Marquinhos, Silva (c), Bernat – Gueye, Verratti, Sarabia – Di Maria, Aouchiche, Choupo-Moting.
L’Équipe report that 22-year-old French attacker Rémi Oudin will be staying with Ligue 1 side Reims after Fiorentina never offered the set asking price.
La Viola made two written proposals between Sunday and this morning, but neither satisfied SDR’s condition of €10m excluding bonuses.
As a result of seeing these two bids rejected, Fiorentina preferred to sign Rachid Ghezzal instead.
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Radamel Falcao Garcia Zarate. A name to strike fear into the hearts of opposition defenders, fans and coaches. The name on the lips of the footballing world… if you had disappeared from the planet in 2012/13, these are the thoughts that would have be in your mind if you had been even a casual observer of European football. But we are in 2019, and in those six or so seasons things have changed; a trajectory that seemed intent on taking the Colombian striker to the very, very top of world soccer has not followed the predicted path.
Before his arrival in Monaco, Falcao scored 128 goals in all competitions in 217 career games. Taking Porto and Atletico Madrid alone this becomes an even more impressive 93 goals in 119 games, leading those sides to a considerable hoard of trophies, both domestically and in the Europa League. It was these statistics along with his aggressive style of play, and the fact that Atleti had form for taking in forwards, turning them into world class operators and selling them on for big profits, meant that the biggest and best teams in Europe were circling. He seemed destined to lead the line at one of those clubs, probably in Spain, England or Germany, and to shine in the Champions’ League, so obviously he turned up in Monaco, to play at the Stade Louis II.
Falcao was supposed to herald the new beginning at AS Monaco; freshly promoted after winning Ligue 2, Monegasque pockets were filling up under the weight of even more cash following new investment in the club. The challenge was firmly thrown down to PSG and the Qataris, surely Falcao would spearhead this, and revitalise the French footballing scene, domestically – and what better place to do that from than Monte Carlo?!
Like so many that possess a superlative talent, circumstances often contrive to play their part, and a serious ACL injury at the start of 2014 meant that the Monaco career of Falcao stalled early on. He would miss the rest of that season and the subsequent World Cup, ensuring mean that fans of Les Rouges et Blanc would not get to see the best of their new hero.
Despite missing so much the 2013/14 campaign and with no summer tournament football to shine in, Falcao was still a much wanted man and two loan spells at Manchester United and then Chelsea were supposed to alleviate some of the financial pressures behind the scenes at Monaco. Instead, perhaps it was because of the knee, he flopped, and flopped hard – the well-trodden path, trail-blazed by Juan Sebastian Veron much earlier, did nothing to benefit the player in a footballing sense – quite the opposite – and nothing to benefit Monaco, with no permanent transfer (and the associated fee) materialising after a meagre return of five goals in 36 games in England.
Falcao was supposed to be a symptom of the malaise of the new regime at Manchester United (see Angel Di Maria et al.) and the way that Chelsea deal in the market at times, but the result was that there simply were not any takers for the former hotshot’s services – a net yearly salary of over €9m probably a contributing factor here, also.
And, here is where we come to the conundrum of Radamel Falcao; he returned to France, neither he, nor his employers fully thrilled at this prospect, but Leonardo Jardim hands him the captain’s armband and we go on to have the 2016/17 miracle of Monte Carlo.
A thrilling young team, choc-full of swashbuckling talents, coached to within an inch of their lives to burn brightly for a solitary season on the Mediterranean coast. Falcao did not only contribute, he led this team and bagged 30 goals in 42 appearances that year. A player transformed, perhaps reborn with the feeling of youth around him, and an in an environment in which to impress upon his younger charges his experience, he delivered.
Fate again though conspired – of course no established European superpower could possibly permit a side like that at Monaco to endure – and the changing winds in the halls of power at the Louis II meant that the Russian ownership was more than happy to take the money on offer for their stars. Except Falcao.
And so to ordinariness we revert – relatively of course. 65 goals in 107 Monaco games remains a seriously impressive tally. But this player cost €60m to buy and €9m a year in salary, and those goals and games are spread over six years, including last season where a return to Ligue 2 looked on the cards.
We never truly saw the best of Falcao since his big money move, and even though he will end his career a wealthy man, with a decent enough medal drawer, when he looks back on his French sojourn he will know that it never consistently worked.
Radamel Falcao will be remembered as one of those players – one that went for financial reasons rather than sporting. Yet for fans of French football, his arrival sparked interest in both a club and a league that had badly needed something new, something big, and Falcao felt like that thing – the blue touch paper to ignite and spark the arms race with Paris.
For one, wonderful, beautiful season he conducted the orchestra of those boys that now sparkle in the top clubs around Europe, winning titles and trophies, but no move for Radamel, despite his moments of brilliance against Manchester City and others. For him, the thought remains what could, what should have been.
As El Tigre leaves the Principality to join Aslan in the wild of Istanbul, truly no other player has “represented” his club more fully. He has been the living embodiment of AS Monaco’s journey since 2013 – the highs, the lows, the controversies, the successes and the failures.
D.R.
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Speaking in an interview with Téléfoot, Marseille’s new #9 Dario Benedetto revealed that former club hero André-Pierre Gignac played a considerable role in his summer move from Boca Juniors to OM.
“Yes I was in contact with him. He is a player who has written himself into the history books of Tigres with a record number of goals. I must thank him because when Marseille enquired about me, he supported me… He asked if I needed advice in order to feel good in the club and in the city. The Marseille President (Eyraud) called Gignac and André-Pierre said a lot of nice things about me and I thank him for that.”
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