OM: a questioned loan?

Pablo Longoria’s OM, who will face Paris Saint-Germain this Sunday evening in Ligue 1, have a squad with many players on loan.

This season, Ruben Blanco, Nuno Tavares, Eric Bailly, Issa Kaboré and Ruslan Malinovskyi have been loaned to the Marseille club. The Ukrainian will stay since his contract includes a mandatory purchase option, but for the other elements, the question certainly arises.

The Portuguese Nuno Tavares for example indicated, yesterday in a press conference, “Nothing” know about “[son] future”. The left-back, like William Saliba last year, could return to Arsenal at the end of his loan and stay there permanently, while his contract extends until 2025 with the Gunners and his performances are interesting (27 games , 6 goals). That said, Arsenal signed Ukrainian Oleksandr Zinchenko this winter which could put a damper on the Portuguese’s future in England.

Uncertain future for Bailly

According to information from The Team, Eric Bailly can also worry about his future on the Canebière. The media indicates that the trend is for the Ivorian to leave, on loan from Manchester United until the summer of 2023. The 28-year-old central defender, often injured or in poor shape, has only started three times in Ligue 1 with Marseille, before tomorrow night’s game against Paris. In all, the former Villarreal player has played 14 games this season with Igor Tudor’s team, for 8 starts.

To recruit him definitively, OM will have to pay 7 million euros. A reduced sum, which corresponds to the market value of Eric Bailly (8M euros according to Transfermarkt), but that could not be enough for OM, who want to count on a more solid player and more capable of stringing together matches.

If Eric Bailly moves away from OM, Pablo Longoria and his team, Javier Ribalta in the lead, will have to find a replacement. Frenchman Evan Ndicka, at the end of his contract with Eintracht Frankfurt this summer, has been cited for OM in recent months.