Should Lyon Extend Remy Vercoutre’s Contract?

By: Inara | October 25th, 2007

This morning, Remy Vercoutre confessed that he is still waiting for Lyon to begin talks regarding his future at the club. His current contract runs until June 2008, and Lyon, normally speedy when it comes to extension offers, have been very quiet about a new contract.

The 27 year old keeper has been with Lyon since 2002, and in that time, he’s played in less than 50 games for Lyon (25 league, 6 CL, plus a handful of cup matches). Those numbers look rather dismal, but when Gregory Coupet is the #1, those numbers would be dismal for anyone.

To recap, Vercoutre changed his mind about leaving the club last summer, which prompted the promising Remy Riou to leave for Auxerre in search of playing time. It was a dumb move on Lyon’s part because Riou was thought to be Coupet’s successor and a candidate for future France NT keeper.

But two weeks after Riou left, Coupet tore his knee ligament, which suddenly left Vercoutre the only capable goalkeeper at the club (there was reserve keeper Joan Hartock, but he has no L1 experience). In a bind, Lyon recruited Frederic Roux, a nobody whose purpose is to fatten Lyon’s payroll.

Lyon could have attempted to lure in a better keeper, but they were afraid that once Coupet came back, the club would have too much competition for one spot. Roux is on a one year contract, so he will leave this summer, and Hartock may follow Riou’s lead and look for opportunities elsewhere.

The club has to make some important decisions here. Vercoutre will never be a world class keeper, and he hasn’t been convincing as Coupet’s deputy in the past few months. Lyon have conceded more goals in their opening fixtures than in the last seven years, and worse yet, Vercoute manages to pick up more yellow cards than the average goalie.

Coupet will be retiring in a year or two, so the time is right for Lyon to bring in a suitable successor for Coupet. And Vercoutre, nice guy that he is, just isn’t good enough. I’ve said this many times before, but if Lyon want to at least act like a big club, they need to be ruthless and drop players that aren’t up to standard.

Damned if Lyon keep Vercoutre, damned if they don’t.

The problem is that by the time Coupet returns to the club, Vercoutre will have deputized for half the season and will have played in more matches this year than he has played in his entire career. He’s one of the most cheerful and encouraging presences in the locker room and has done his best to cover for one of the most talented goalkeepers in the world, and more importantly, has accepted the criticisms thrown at him daily with grace and dignity. After all that Vercoutre has done for Lyon in the past six months, would abandoning him right now be too cold blooded?

So should Lyon extend Vercoutre’s contract?

It’s obvious that Lyon are in an awkward position. In fact, it would be quite accurate to say that they fucked up the situation really badly. I think even Jean-Michel Aulas will lose some sleep over this question.