Pape, what is your reaction to Sabri Lamouchi’s decision to quit Marseille?
First of all, there’s a bit of regret because it’s never a joyous occasion to separate from a player in the middle of a season. He’s a player that we went and found for very specific reasons. We needed his experience, his talent, and I think he was a very important player for us last season. This season he was one of the pillars of the side, depending on the formation chosen by the coaching staff. But apparently things haven’t gone the way he thought they would. He clearly had trouble adapting to the competition for places required and put into practice by Albert Emon. And then perhaps there are other reasons that only he knows…

Is it because he was afraid of the competition, or because he wanted to join another club?
Knowing Sabri like I do, I don’t think he would have made this decision at the will of another club, because it’s not an easy decision to make given our amazing start to the season, in which everyone has participated. Today there is an atmosphere within the squad that we’ve rarely seen at OM. When you look at all the matches we’ve played, in Europe or here in France, you can see that the team has changed, sometimes unrecognisably. Some players came off the bench, others were in the starting line-up, even when they hadn’t played the previous game. That just shows that the entire squad has taken part in reaching the goals set by the club.
I honestly think, therefore, that there must be reasons that are beyond my understanding for why Sabri would want to join another club. We met on Sunday, with José Anigo and he appeared determined to end his relationship with OM. We agreed to his demands, even if he had a contract with us to honour. I could have asked to honour that contract, but I didn’t see the point, given his age and his desire to leave.

Does OM plan to replace him with another defensive midfielder?
It’s not certain because we’ll have to have a look at things. We had a squad that we thought was in place for the season. We have goals and a growing ambition given our positive start to the season, so obviously we don’t want to weaken the squad. We’ll discuss it together, with the sporting director and the coaching staff to see what we can do. It is possible to bring in a joker, but we don’t know yet if we will use that. We might try and wait until the winter transfer market and see how we’re going. We’ll have a meeting in the coming hours to see what is best for Marseille.