Andre Villas Boas opened up to The Athletic this week about his departure from Marseille.
The former Chelsea and Spurs boss tendered his resignation as the club brought in Celtic midfielder Olivier Ntcham on loan.
AVB made it clear at the time he didn’t want Olivier Ntcham at the club and it was the final thing that tipped him over the edge to walk away.
Now five months removed from the incident – the former Marseille boss is still not over the move the club made for Ntcham.
“One of the things we had between us was we will never sign a player without the full acceptance of the coach.
“And we reach January and we had an offer for one of our midfielders (Morgan Sanson) from Aston Villa.
“And the targets we had we kept missing them because they weren’t available or they were overpriced or when we came in we were too late. And suddenly there are no more options left.
“So the next day I wake up and we’ve signed Ntcham. Ntcham!
“I didn’t say yes to Ntcham. We had no conversation of me saying yes to Ntcham. So I go. And then the battle becomes compensation.
“We had a one-month battle to reach an agreement for me to leave for nothing, which is what I had proposed to them in the first place.”
If Oli has any of his self esteem placed in what AVB thinks about him then the bhoy will need some picking up!
Managers sometimes get players thrust upon them – the scouting system and the chairman can conspire to bring a player in against the manager’s wishes and it can all go sour from there.
We witnessed that at Celtic when the club signed Marian Shved and Brendan Rodgers told the media he had enough wingers.
Ntcham is not expected to stay at the club beyond the summer but it’s unclear where the midfielder will end up right now.
