In recent months, Benjamin Mendy has been associated with OM, the Lorient player having pushed to convince Marseille to recruit him… in vain since the Marseille board did not validate this arrival.
Despite a significant recruitment this summer, Roberto De Zerbi is not very rich in certain positions. On the left of the defense, the Italian technician is a fan of Quentin Merlin, but the French international hopeful does not have a real replacement, except for Ulisses Garcia, who came out of the loft to make up the numbers and who proved valuable in Lyon with an unexpected goal. In recent months, Olympique de Marseille have sounded out the market to find a replacement for Quentin Merlin at left-back, without ultimately finding the right shoe for him. Currently in Lorient, Benjamin Mendy would have loved to make his big return to Marseille and according to information from L’Equipe, Mehdi Benatia has seriously looked into the case of the former Manchester City player.
Pablo Longoria’s advisor would have been rather in favor of his arrival, but this transfer was not unanimous within the club, which is why OM did not accelerate on Benjamin Mendy. The version of the national daily is nevertheless denied by the insider account La Minute OM, which provided important details on this file by explaining that it was Gennaro Gattuso who wanted the player last January, and not Mehdi Benatia. “It was Gattuso who wanted him at OM, not Benatia. It could have happened last summer too, but the club did not want to” published the insider account, for whom it was therefore Gennaro Gattuso who was at the origin of this interest, and not Pablo Longoria’s sports advisor.
No, Benatia did not want Mendy at OM
The proof is that when this track came up again this summer, Olympique de Marseille did not follow up, preferring to skip the recruitment of a left-back rather than bet on Benjamin Mendy. It must be said that after having brought in Mason Greenwood from Manchester United with the past and controversies that we know, the arrival of Benjamin Mendy would perhaps have been too much and OM did not want to take this risk. Especially since at the same time, Ulisses Garcia did not find a place to fall and OM absolutely wanted to avoid piling up players in the same position in order to keep a coherent payroll. As a result, Benjamin Mendy is still in Lorient, where he has still not played a single Ligue 2 match since the start of the season.
