When the season started, there was a lot of excitement in Marseille at the idea of Manchester United’s Eric Bailly playing for them this season.
The Ivory Coast international was brought in to help with the loss of William Saliba, who returned to London after a successful loan spell, but the reality of it all is the move hasn’t worked out.
Not because he hasn’t played well, because he has for the most part, but due to the fact that he has, like many times before at Manchester United, spent a lot of time injured.
The centre-back has been out of action on two separate occasions this season, and was given a lengthy ban for a very silly foul during a cup game, which has led to the question of whether buying him at the end of the season is a good idea.
Reports when he left Manchester United was that Marseille’s option to buy could be made permanent relatively easily, but there are some in the south of France who really don’t want that to be true.
One of those is pundit Jean-Charles de Bono, who told Football Club de Marseille: “If they finish second and you have to keep him on a big salary for the next two years, it’s going to be difficult. Today, it would not be a good move for OM. Then again, I don’t know if he’ll have fewer injuries next season or he regains all his feelings. It could then be something else entirely. But today, when we talk about it, Bailly is not a good move for OM.
“I think that in the mind of our manager Igor Tudor, he is not one of the priorities. Bailly takes himself a bit for someone else, a bit like Tavares. We hope that this story of a mandatory purchase option if we finish second is fake news.”
