After Rennes’ victory against Toulouse, Frédéric Antonetti enjoyed the success with much moderation. Clearly annoyed with Victor Hugo Montaño’s injury, the Stade Rennes manager was keen to remind yet another time that his resources are reduced, especially in attack. Until there, nothing new. But this time, the manager publicly called on his management to give him resources in accordance with the club’s ambitions. Tensions building up?
Leading the Ligue 1 for the first time since forty years, a total of eighteen points in only eight game weeks, a squad seemingly inhabited by the best of spirits, one could think that life is beautiful at Stade Rennes.
However, the combined departures of Asamoah Gyan and Ismaël Bangoura in the last hours of the summer transfer window (and a bit later) keep on fuelling the tensions at the club. And Victor Hugo Montaño’s absence for a month will remind everyone, if this was necessary, that the Rennes attacking sector is particularly limited in terms of quantity.
The situation is particularly annoying Frédéric Antonetti, who didn’t hesitate to share his irritation with the press early this week. “To play thirty-eight games with only one striker, it’s impossible, the Corsican coach complained to L’Équipe on Tuesday. Upfront, we don’t have an adequate team for the position we’re in. If I was angry on Sunday, it’s in part because I could not do any coaching. Coahcing, it means take someone out and have someone ready to replace him”.
Deprived of attacking options, Stade Rennes are looking for a possible joker. But again, despite several contacts and to Antonetti’s despairs, no recruitment is likely to happen before the winter transfer window. The last rumour in date was bringing Paris’ Mevlüt Erding to Rennes (read previously). «If he wants to come and Paris want to sell him, I’m ready to drive and pick him up myself!”, Antonetti joked on RMC this Wednesday . Humour or despair, the manager is giving a hollow laugh.
_As for Pierre Dréossi, he will only confirm his trust in a «reduced squad». And the general manager goes one step further: “there could be an emergency to recruit a striker, but it isn’t possible at this moment”. It is true that the profile Rennes are looking for is rare, a striker able to play at the centre or on the right, that would bring a real addition to the Rennes squad, who plays in France, would like to come to Rennes and –especially- would not be retained by his club.
Left high and dry, probably forced to “fiddle around” with his attacking options for at least the next four weeks, Frédéric Antonetti might have lost some of his illusions. This “club in the first third of the table” he was proud to join just a year ago is probably not going to give him all the resources he had hoped for.
«Rennes has been punching above its weight for years, Antonetti affirms. There is too much expectancy at the club considering the resources. It is not possible to be so exigent with the coaching staff and the players, in regards to the means we have”. Unusual words, especially knowing that his mission arriving at the club was to do better than his predecessors… without getting any additional resources. An avowal of powerlessness?
«Our budget is 47M€, and seven to eight clubs are above us, the Corsican coach continues. I always hear that Rennes is an outsider that never manages to get there, but whyu doesn’t Rennes manage it? We need more flexibility”, he finishes.
The words are strangely resounding, when the official speech was always congratulating the common work between Antonetti and his management. Not hesitating to call on his superiors in front of the media, the Stade Rennais coach has visibly lost patience, and he could be tempted to really rock the boat over the coming weeks.
By all means, despite sportive results close to ideal, palpable tension has appeared to daylight between the club management and its coach. Reaching the end of his contract, one can’t imagine he would know the same end of reign as Guy Lacombe before him, who went through permanent conflict with his direction at the time.
Before this (bad) scenario could replicate, the possibility of a reconciliation in January seill exists, as the winter transfer window will give much broader possibilities to the recruitment team. In the meantime, Antonetti is most likely bound to continue carry on his shoulder what many expect from him: miracles.
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