When they were both at Chelsea, Mauricio Pochettino pretended in the summer of 2023 not to know Malang Sarr. An episode that the current defender of RC Lens has not forgotten.
August 2023. While Chelsea have been making checks and signings since the start of the summer, Mauricio Pochettino is questioned at a press conference about the XXL squad that the Blues owners are building. A journalist takes the opportunity to take stock of all the players barred by these arrivals and announced departures, like defender Malang Sarr: “I wanted to ask a question about these players who have disappeared. Malang Sarr, who was on loan last season…”
“He even tried to recruit me to Tottenham”
To which Pochettino responds coldly: “Who that?” Immediate discomfort in the room. Because if he is the cellar, Sarr has belonged to Chelsea since 2020 and is then under contract until 2025. The club's press officer feels obliged to intervene to enlighten the Argentine coach, who cannot find anything better than adding: “I don't know what to tell you. I don't know, you surprised me…”
Now at RC Lens, which he joined this summer, Sarr has not forgotten this episode. “I took it badly, it had no reason to be,” he said this Saturday in the columns of L’Equipe. “He knew me, he even tried to recruit me to Tottenham. I didn't even ask for an explanation.” Deprived of playing time that season at Chelsea, and even held back in the winter transfer window when he hoped to bounce back in Le Havre, the former Nice defender is now fully fulfilled in the North.
“The values of Lens – family, work, humility – are mine. It was what I needed,” he says. Faced with strong competition, he should take advantage of the suspensions of Jonathan Gradit and Abdukodir Khusanov to start this Saturday against OM (5 p.m.), on the occasion of the 12th day of Ligue 1. As for Pochettino, fired by Chelsea in end of last season, he is now trying to relaunch himself at the helm of the American selection.
