ACTUALITE |
08.07.2002
THE FRENCH CONNECTION
Kevin Keegan says that despite the mix of Nationalities in the City squad there will be no problem with the players bonding in a team.
You could be forgiven for thinking that manager, Kevin Keegan has spent his free time on his summer break studying a French dictionary. The boss, who speaks fluent German, will return to pre season training with eight of the squad for whom French is their mother tongue.
New signings, Sylvain Distin, Nicolas Anelka and Marc Vivien Foe will be saying, "bonjour" to Lucien Mettomo, Christian Negouai, Laurent Charvet and Ali Benarbia prochain jeudi (next Thursday), when they get together at Le Carrington for the start of pre season training.
But no shouts of, "passez le ballon (copain)...pass the ball (mate) will be heard on the training ground as all the new boys speak English. Neither is there any danger that the French influence will dominate the squad.
"It is not really French as such," explained le boss. "Ali Benarbia is Algerian, while Marc Vivien Foe is Cameroon and so is Lucien Mettomo. My job is to get them to play together but then we were able to do that last season."
"When I look at the Nationalities which were all playing together for City last season I couldn`t believe it."
"I have no worry about the mix of Nationalities playing or the fact that a number of them speak French. Those things don`t worry me and I often think that people who look for those sorts of problems then they will probably find them."
"But we have no such problems in the squad. They all speak good English. Lucien Mettomo, Sylvain Distin and Nicolas Anelka all speak great English."
"The two young lads Mikkel Bischoff and Tyrone Loran and of course Peter Schmeichel speak excellent English, so it will be English we will be speaking."
"I am not so sure about Richard Dunne," said the boss with his tongue in cheek," but I am sure he will improve!"
There is too a harsh economic reality to buying players from outside the Premiership, as the boss explained.
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