OL Mercato: Pierre Sage wants 4 to 6 more departures in January

At a press conference, Pierre Sage quantified OL's needs in terms of downsizing its workforce.

If Olympique Lyonnais has already lost three players with the sales of Jeffinho (Botafogo) and Gift Orban (Hoffenheim) as well as the release of Anthony Lopes (FC Nantes), it is still not enough for Pierre Sage who still wants to reduce its workforce.

Initially, during his “post-DNCG” press briefing in November, John Textor put forward the idea of 5-6 departures. We would rather be between 7 and 9 if we rely on the words of the Lyon coach on Thursday at a press conference: “With the goalkeepers, we were 24 + 4. The ideal would be to be at 20 + 4”.

It's still complicated for Almada and Henrique

With the loan returns, OL are therefore still at 24+4 today (since Lopes did not count in the plans!) and at least four elements will still have to leave (Zaha? Caqueret? Diawara? Akouokou ? Kumbedi? Adryelson?) or even six players (Benrahma? Nuamah?) to achieve the downsizing objectives and allow the arrival of the two stars from Botafogo, paid directly by OL last summer and expected in Lyon in January.

If OL do not despair of being able to count on Thiago Almada and Luiz Henrique, they will have to overcome the significant obstacle of the DNCG. Banned from recruitment, Lyon still hopes to convince the French financial policeman to give it the possibility of recovering the two men on free loan with a salary directly paid by Eagle Holdings, parent company of Eagle Football (formerly OL Groupe). For Luiz Henrique, it will also be necessary to solve the problem of non-community citizens.