“Thanks to their great work, the players blew up a coach”

Bad evening for Laurent Nicollin. This Sunday, October 20, the president of Montpellier witnessed, helplessly, the rout of his team against Olympique de Marseille at the Mosson stadium (0-5). A salty result, which places the MHSC dead last in Ligue 1 after 8 days. All this, with the worst defense, by far, in the championship (26 goals conceded already). For the Hérault leader, the slap inflicted by OM on his team was therefore one too many. After the final whistle, Laurent Nicollin therefore took responsibility for announcing the ousting of his coach Michel Der Zakarian.

“In football, you can’t change 25 players. It’s more difficult to change 25 players than a coach, so… Unfortunately, I took the initiative to stop Michel this (Sunday) evening, the boss of the MHSC justified himself on the DAZN microphone. We had a good chat, we talked in the locker room at the end of the match. I told him that it was stopping this (Sunday) evening and I told the team. players that thanks to their great work, they had blown up a coach and that now, it was up to them to take responsibility next Sunday against Toulouse”, indicated Laurent Nicollin.

“I’ll already have to find one who wants to come”

Did the latter hold a grudge against his players after the debacle? “I’m not someone who wants it. I blame people when they don’t give what’s right. Maybe I don’t give what’s right, maybe that the coach didn’t give what was needed, the players didn’t give what was needed, … Now everyone has to give what they need to give Sunday, it’s our championship and it’s. “We absolutely have to win against Toulouse,” he warned, before returning to the sidelining of Der Zakarian.

“It wasn’t the magic solution, but it was the solution to reboost everyone, to realize that we’re going straight there if we don’t do anything. We could still wait for one match, two matches, three matches , … In my head, I had planned to wait for Toulouse but given the result this evening, but given the lack of desire, the little of what the players gave, I said that we had to stop what…”, he explained. For the moment, the identity of Michel De Zakarian’s successor seems very vague. “It wasn’t planned so… As for the profile, I don’t know anything about it. I’ll already have to find one who wants to come and take over a team in difficulty. It’s never easy. We will try to find someone who has DNA close to ours and who is ready to take up the challenge and go into battle,” Laurent Nicollin finished by announcing.