Olympique de Marseille president Pablo Longoria has admitted to making errors during the previous transfer window during a wide-ranging interview with RMC Sport.
Notably, Longoria believes that he didn’t give enough importance to the style of the new manager. At the end of last season, Igor Tudor decided to leave Marseille just halfway through his two-year deal. The Croatian manager deployed a man-to-man marking system across the pitch, however, this was not the approach of his successor, Marcelino, who deployed a more zonal, collective system.
In addition to the change of manager, there was also considerable investment in new players over the course of the summer. Iliman Ndiaye, Ismaila Sarr, Renan Lodi, Geoffrey Kondogbia, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Joaquín Correa, Amir Murillo and Bamo Meïté were amongst those to join Les Phocéens.
Whilst Longoria asserts that he has “a lot of trust in the current squad,” he does nonetheless admit that he made mistakes during the previous window by underestimating the impact of a change in the system. “One of the biggest errors that I made was a lack of analysis in the difficulty of moving from Igor Tudor’s style of play and that was an error that I made in the construction of the squad. I minimised the impact of a transition in playing style. I wasn’t worried about a change in style. The reality has shown that, on my part, the analysis was too superficial,” said Longoria.
