Result | St Étienne 4-1 OGC Nice - Les Aiglons soundly beaten as Claude Puel's men, led by the sparkling Denis Bouanga, put last week's Europa League elimination behind them.
Yesterday's thread on Lyon's problems was well-received, so here comes another, this time a deeper dive into OGC Nice's woes.
Last season, against all odds, Nice finished 7th, 10pts away from Europe during Patrick Vieira's 1st season in charge. This was phenomenal as, owing to Vieira's fall out with Mario Balotelli, they played the entire season without a fit recognised striker in their 1st team squad.
A steadfast defence, led by cat-like Walter Benitez & €4m summer centre-back signing Christophe Hérelle, made Nice the strongest defensive team aside from Reims. Youcef Atal meanwhile, sometimes from right-back, sometimes from left-wing, constantly made the difference in attack.
Make no mistake, despite this moderate success with an admittedly threadbare squad, Patrick Vieira's Nice were identityless, always relying on individual brilliance in either box. Wylan Cyprien, previously a midfield lynchpin under Favre & Puel, had constant fitness issues.
Vieira deserves credit for keeping the squad largely united in a season of boardroom drama. Ex-owner Chien Lee forced the club into a bizarre €22m loan in December with terms that meant that if Nice were in 14th or lower by matchday 22, it would have to be repaid within a week.
This + a refusal to spend in the January window led to President Rivère & Sporting Director Fournier, two of the savviest men in French football, to resign prompting Lee to hire @GGanaye, then at sister club Barnsley, who became the youngest club president in Ligue 1 history.
@GGanaye Ganaye then brought in ex-Arsenal scout & best friend of Patrick Vieira, Gilles Grimandi, as the new Sporting Director. Grimandi's tenure would be so short that he wouldn't make a single signing, apart from the free transfer of one of the Lilian Thuram sons, midfielder Khéphren.
@GGanaye In the meantime, Rivère was scheming to make his return to the OGC Nice presidency by courting Britain's wealthiest man, Sir Jim Ratcliffe (a process that began in late 2018), to purchase the club via his chemicals company INEOS.
@GGanaye Rivère taps into Ratcliffe's emotional connection to the Côte D'Azur & convinces him to do a deal. The problem? Chien Lee wants to play hardball, releasing a series of statements claiming to be at the club long-term whilst also refusing to spend any money in the summer window.
@GGanaye Why's this important? Nice's pre-season was a train wreck. After selling Alassane Pléa, Maxime Le Marchand, Jean Seri in 2018 & still without a striker apart from perennially injured Mickaël Le Bihan, 50% of the squad were teenagers. They lose 6-1 to Burnley, 8-1 to Wolfsburg.
@GGanaye Chien Lee's negotiations with INEOS took longer than everyone expected. With what can only be described as acting in bad faith, he accepts & then re-negotiates the club selling price multiple times across the summer.
@GGanaye When the sale of Nice to INEOS for a Ligue 1 record €120m goes through, the new owners then had 8 days left of the summer transfer window to enact deals. In theory, this should've been fine, Fournier (brought back w/ Rivère) is a master in the French market & already had plans.
@GGanaye He made 5 signings, but none of them have significant Ligue 1 experience:
- Kasper Dolberg for €20m was the kind of crazy bet that Nice have a proven track record of succeeding with (Balotelli, Ben Arfa) - with 3 goals in his last 3, he is only now adapting to L1's physicality.
- Kasper Dolberg for €20m was the kind of crazy bet that Nice have a proven track record of succeeding with (Balotelli, Ben Arfa) - with 3 goals in his last 3, he is only now adapting to L1's physicality.
@GGanaye - Stanley N'Soki at €10m from PSG certainly felt like a shrewd bet on potential. The problem? He's neither a left-back (not mobile enough) nor a centre-back (not positionally astute enough) yet. Vieira stunted Malang Sarr's growth at CB by forcing him to play LB last season.
@GGanaye Arguably not Vieira's fault - he didn't trust Racine Coly to perform & the board refused to sign a left-back. But these events have hurt the potential of a possibly generational talent in Malang Sarr. In buying N'Soki, Nice have not definitely solved the problem at left-back.
@GGanaye Malang Sarr's situation is turning into hell. At 20 & a local boy, he should be entrusted as a future captain & be playing a key role at Nice. But Vieira refuses to change leadership structure or even just drop 36-year-old captain Dante who currently starts at CB instead of him.
@GGanaye Dante is both a very good leader & at 36 is performing well enough, but arguably not well enough to justify blocking Malang Sarr's development any longer. The reason we focus on this case is it is emblematic of Vieira's scatty & conservative approach to selection across his XIs.
@GGanaye - Alexis-Claude Maurice at €15m: arguably Nice's biggest coup. Lorient President Féry told GFFN in a recent podcast that ACM is the best player he's ever housed. Problem? Has had injury problems since arriving. When he's played, Vieira has put him on the wing. He is best at #10.
@GGanaye - Adam Ounas on loan from Napoli, back in a league where he first broke through at Bordeaux & promising for the Italians in the Europa League last season felt canny when announced in August. Again, the 23-year-old has had fitness problems since arriving. Are Nice merely unlucky?
@GGanaye Or is this what happens when all that's left to you at the end of a transfer window to choose from are players seeking an exit so desperately that they don't produce an adequate pre-season with their previous clubs?
@GGanaye Hicham Bouadoui, Algeria's next great midfield hope, completed their rushed summer shopping. Patrick Vieira has so far refused to significantly feature the 20-year-old & frankly we haven't seen enough of him in L1 to make a determination either way.
@GGanaye The narrative in Nice after these high potential signings were made around Vieira changed quickly. No longer did he have an excuse for constant tactical tinkering, as, the left-back position aside, he now has arguably the most exciting young squad in France at his disposal.
@GGanaye And yet he has continued to make alterations on a weekly basis & after 3 months still hasn't taken a position on key questions: Is Youcef Atal more impactful at LW than RB? Is Ignatius Ganago better served in a front 2 with Dolberg than at RW?
@GGanaye Can you justify Cyprien as the deepest-lying in a midfield 3 when his best campaign was in a box-to-box role? Isn't Pierre Lees-Melou simply too slow & not consistently accurate enough with his passing to be a key part of the team?
@GGanaye The state of confusion & indecision that Patrick Vieira now presides over at Nice is symbolised by the fact that the club's top performer this season, Arnaud Lusamba, was farmed out by Vieira in 2018/19 to Cercle Brugge & that was when he had the thinnest squad in the league!
@GGanaye INEOS stated at the start of their reign that they had learnt from experiences with their 1st football venture in Switzerland (Lausanne) not to be too reactionary. But this state of malaise has real consequences: goalkeeper Walter Benitez & Malang Sarr's contracts are up in June.
@GGanaye INEOS have the finances & the ability to insert new sponsors into the club ecosystem that could genuinely allow Nice to compete with PSG. Each day they continue to persist with Vieira, who is undoubtedly a strong defensive coach, they're risking that their project false starts.
