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Screen Shot 2016-09-05 at 09.37.44It may not have been the biggest transfer deal, or deals, of the summer window, and it may not have been the latest, but the Georges-Kévin N’Koudou and Clinton N’Jie saga was certainly one of the oddest sagas.

N’Koudou spent a prolonged summer holiday holed up in a London hotel room, waiting for the approval on his transfer to Tottenham. Meanwhile, N’Jie continued to train with Spurs and wasn’t entirely sure he fancied moving to Marseille.

As the saga grew older, N’Jie obviously grew more doubts, and Marseille went to the extent of sending former club president Vincent Labrune and current president Gunter Jacob to N’Jie’s home to convince him.

The situation had dragged on so long that Marseille had gone through a presidency change.

Over the weekend, the new man in charge was asked by L’Equipe about the saga, and Jacob explained: “For the first time in my life, I really understood the significance of experience. If I had not been at Genk for four years, in similar circumstances, it would have been a nightmare.”

Jacob is experiencing something of a baptism of fire, there’s an ownership change at Marseille, and on deadline day there were many agents looking to take advanatge of the club’s need for players: “It was amazing. I can only tell you that just on August 31st, the last day of the transfer window, I got 220 calls. You can imagine that the duration of the conversations was limited.”