Sometimes, selling your best player, or at least one of your best players, comes back to bite you in the backside, and that’s exactly what’s happened to Lorient in Ligue 1.
The French club, who finished 15th last season, are currently rock bottom with six points from their first 10 games, which has led them to sack their manager Sylvain Ripoll.
L’Equipe report one of the big reasons for Lorient’s failures was their inability to replace Didier N’dong, who was so vital for them last season, sold to Sunderland during the summer transfer window for €20m.
The club’s attempts to do so by loaning Watford’s Abdoulaye Doucouré were scuppered due to being 33 seconds late with their paperwork, and only a certain Jérémie Aliadière was brought in when the manager didn’t want an extra striker.
Board and manager appear to be at fault for this one, but the decision to get rid of a manager mid-season is a rarity for Lorient (the last it happened was in 1988), meaning the decision won’t have been taken lightly.
