When OGC Nice decided to loan Joe Bryan from Fulham, the move was quite surprising.
After all, very few English players move to France, but with the likes of Aaron Ramsey and Ross Barkley also moving there, and the club being owned by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the links were there from the off.
The Fulham defender was sent on loan for the year despite his contract at Craven Cottage expiring next summer, which was another eyebrow raising aspect of the deal.
He was brought in as competition for Melvin Bard, and yet despite the Frenchman not convincing, Bryan hasn’t been able to take his chances either.
The reason is that the Fulham man ‘has not convinced’, while Melvin Bard ‘isn’t a unanimous choice behind the scenes’.
There’s no indication of what will happen to Bryan if another left-back is signed in the next transfer window, but it would be easy to guess that the loan could be cut short.
Either that, or the 29-year-old sits around and wait for both his Nice and Fulham contracts to expire so he can move on a free somewhere else next summer.
