OL: a winter target justifies its refusal

A midfielder targeted by Olympique Lyonnais, during the month of January, explained his refusal to take the direction of the Rhône.

At the end of the contract

Very active in the last days of the winter transfer window with the arrivals in the attacking sector of Jeffinho, the Brazilian attacking midfielder from Botafogo, and Swedish striker Amin Sarr, from Heerenveen, Olympique Lyonnais also wanted to attach the services of a defensive midfielder. With this in mind, Laurent Blanc’s Gones had their sights on a well-known Bundesliga player in the French championship, who passed through Montpellier.

As explained on our site, the Rhône club was considering recruiting Ellyes Skhiri, the Cologne midfielder. But like the failure to recruit Joao Gomes, the Brazilian midfielder from Flamengo having signed up with the English from Wolverhampton, Olympique Lyonnais could not complete the arrival of the 27-year-old Tunisian international. years old, left MHSC in the summer of 2019 and who has since worn the FCK tunic, with which his contract runs until next June and who has played 26 games in all competitions since the start of the 2022-2023 financial year .

“It wasn’t the best time”

The former member of Ligue 1 took advantage of an interview with the newspaper The Team to evoke the interest of the management of Lyon in his regard. The native of Lunel justified his refusal to disembark at Groupama Stadium. “It’s true that there was this opportunity and this great interest from Olympique Lyonnais. It’s very flattering because it’s a club that I really like. But the timing of the offer was not good, it happened very late in January. It was not the best moment for me, I had already resumed competition with the team and it was difficult to leave because I was involved with this team. I preferred to refuse.”