Nantes is mired in a situation that is still unusual. This Saturday afternoon, in a story published on his Instagram account, defensive midfielder Junior Mwanga, on loan from Strasbourg, announced that he was leaving the club. “Thank you to FC Nantes and good luck for the future,” he wrote. Problem is, the Ligue 1 club is not aware of this contract termination, even though the player must stay until the end of the season.
“Everyone is responsible for their words. I think today the club has not issued a press release. So now, if the players decide to leave on their own, that doesn’t concern me,” said Nantes coach Ahmed Kantari, very upset after his team’s defeat at Lorient (2-1).
Mwanga had not been selected for the trip on “sporting” criteria, assured the coach. “I think you see the matches like me,” he added, pointing out Mwanga’s very poor performances recently. Kantari, however, did not dwell on this individual case, after another defeat for his team, still 16th and play-off for the moment, but removed from the non-relegation places, with a deficit of six points.
A lack of efficiency despite a good mentality
Diligent and combative, Nantes managed to come back to 1-1 a quarter of an hour from the end before conceding a second goal in the 89th and being denied an equalizer in added time for offside. The coach admitted to feeling “a lot of frustration”, rejoicing at “the state of mind that (his) players displayed today, the quality of play that they offered in the second half”.
“They played a consistent match, we shot twice as much as this Lorient team, we touched a lot more balls in the area, we perhaps lacked a little efficiency,” admitted Kantari. However, he also felt that his team was starting to “really have some bearings” in the game and that with “the recruits or the returns from injury (…) the team has a completely different face”.
