Originally published at: What the French media are saying about Celtic midfielder Olivier Ntcham after day of drama - 67 Hail Hail
More details have emerged about the controversial Olivier Ntcham move from Celtic to Marseille on Monday and Tuesday. Today, French sports newspaper L’Equipe devoted their front-page coverage to the saga involving the Ligue 1 side, Andre Villas-Boas and Ntcham. Villas-Boas has been sacked as a result of it all, after slamming the club’s decision to…
Hi John, really enjoyed all the 67HailHail content from yourself, Hamish & all the guys during this neverending lockdown.
It would take a cruel man or woman to not feel a bit sorry for Ntcham being caught in the eye of this storm - especially with the lack of other non-Covid related news & the high profile names involved it’s really blew up across the worldwide sporting media.
As much as I respect AVB (wouldn’t be adverse to him coming here however unlikely) and don’t doubt he preferred other midfield options with a slightly sunnier disposition, you have to wonder if Olivier has been made a bit of a scapegoat whilst enabling him to jump ship before the season’s end given the disastrous run and fan hostility at Marseille.
For me there’s absolutely no doubting Ntcham’s ability, and I’ll always appreciate those 2 surging runs and finishes against Rangers and Lazio - but it kinda says it all about his time here (especially post-Moussa Dembélé) that those are the only 2 game-changing moments that really spring to mind.
Maybe if we had a better manager who would’ve put an arm around him & coaches that could motivate and actually help him improve it would have turned out better and teams like Porto would still be chasing him for £17M.
I wish him all the best and hope his performance on the pitch will see his new supporters forget his boyhood allegiance to PSG…
HH
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I cant help feeling there has been mismanagement here on Celtics part if such a thing is possible!!! We`ve even managed to lose out financially with an accountant in charge!