Manchester City defender Aymeric Laporte was at his former club, Athletic Club Bilbao, when he started playing for France Under 21s and Willy Sagnol was in charge of Les Espoirs between 2013 and 2014.
The former Bayern Munich assistant manager appeared on RMC Sport’s TV show ‘Le Vestiaire’ and talked about why it was difficult for him and his then staff to manage the 24-year-old when he was a part of the Under 21 setup.
“He’s a good defender, he’s playing in Manchester City, there’s nothing to say. I’ve experienced it with France U21s and to be perfectly honest, I did not necessarily have a lot of issues from a human point of view,” the 41-year-old explained.
“He was a player who always had a problem when he arrived to train on Monday morning: the thigh, the back, the head, the ear, the toe… There was always a problem and we told ourselves with the staff that he was not happy to be there.”
Sagnol made these comments while backing France manager Didier Deschamps’ decision to leave the Premier League winner out of the squad for the upcoming international fixtures against Iceland and Germany.
The World Cup winning coach is without the services of Barcelona defender Samuel Umtiti and Adil Rami of Marseille due to injuries and has included Crystal Palace’s Mamadou Sakho and Kurt Zouma, who is on loan at Everton from Chelsea.
“I think we have to stop talking about some players at some point, I understand Deschamps. When you have a player, who for two years makes you dance by saying ‘I choose France, Spain, France, Spain’, at one point you must say ‘listen, if you do not care about the blue jersey, go elsewhere’,” he explained.
It should be seen whether Laporte will have anything to say about his former coach’s remarks.
