Have Lyon Gone Batshit Crazy?

By: Inara | July 15th, 2009

It was bound to happy eventually. I don’t know about you guys, but after the embarrassment of last season’s finish, I was dreading the oncoming ~dramah~, :tearz:, and angsty soap operas from the players and the staff. I was expecting a meltdown of epic proportions. I thought that the sky would fall.

Which sorta happened, but not exactly as I expected.

Did someone’s bunny just die? Oh wait, it was last season’s title hopes.

Instead, our beloved Jean-Mimi is going insane with his wallet. It’s as if he suddenly thinks Lyon are Real Madrid and can spend without being bothered by the price tag. To illustrate my point, let’s take a look at Lyon’s five main summer targets.

Lisandro Lopez - €24m + plus €4m in incentives
Michel Bastos – €18m + plus at least €2m incentives
Aly Cissokho – €15m + plus up to €4m in incentives
Andre-Pierre Gignac – €25m
Loic Remy – €16m + Anthony Mounier

So far, Lyon have only signed the first two, but Lyon are dead serious but acquiring the remaining three. The ink on Lopez’s contract is barely dry, and Bastos will be putting pen to paper in the next two or three days. Furthermore, Lyon are also confident over Cissokho (though with Porto, you never know – their president is even crazier than ours). The only two question marks are Gignac and Remy, both of whom are being zealously guarded by their clubs.

Lyon are buying Bastos so he can’t humiliate us anymore.

I’m okay with the amount spent on Lopez because he’s very experienced, he’s an international, he has a proven track record in Europe (which is key, in Lyon’s case), and Porto wanted to take advantage of the fact that Lyon were desperate to replace Karim Benzema. Even the amount we’re spending on Bastos doesn’t make me uneasy because A) It’s Lille, B) Seydoux Connection, and C) After Lyon spent a similar amount on Kader I’m-A-Waste-of-Space Keita, Lille can charge us whatever they want.

But here is where I’m getting concerned. Porto bought Cissokho last January for €300,000 from some tiny Portuguese club no one has ever heard of. Last year, Cissokho was plying his trade in the French second division. But after a really good game against Manchester United in the Champions League quarterfinals, he’s suddenly hot property, with Porto demanding over 30 times what they paid him for despite having him for only 5 months. Damn, that’s good business.

The worst part is that Lyon are actually willing to meet Porto’s €15m evaluation (Lyon tried to bid lower…if you consider €12m low…but Porto told Lyon to fuck off, and then Aulas got scared). The only reason things are still hung up is that the two clubs are bickering over incentives.

According to AC Milan, Cissokho has a tooth problem. I can kinda believe it.

Lyon’s bid of €13.5m + Anthony Mounier (who himself is valued at €5m) has been rejected because Nice want €18m + Mounier + Miralem Pjanic on loan. In response, Lyon will now be sending a renewed bid of €15m + the player. What is embarrassing is that Remy, an OL youth product, was sold last season for €8m to Nice (in order to compensate for the purchases of Ederson and Hugo Lloris). And now Lyon have to pay over twice as much to get him back because they underestimated his talent. This all seems pointless to me because I’m sure next year we’ll be trying to buy back Mounier.

The biggest transfer saga of all is shaping up to be Gignac’s. Toulouse don’t want to sell their best player, who was also the highest scorer in L1 last season. They especially don’t want to sell him to Lyon because they claim that Aulas is being classless by pursuing a player who is “off-limits.” Normally, I’d sympathize because Lyon go through that all the time, but then I remember what Toulouse did when they signed Gignac (he had already signed a pre-contract with Lille, and Lorient had also come to terms with Lille, when Toulouse lured him away with a better contract at the last possible second. It was a scandal). Now Toulouse are saying that they will only sell Gignac to Lyon if Aulas ponies up €25m. Lyon’s €15m offer has already been refused, though I feel Aulas might be willing to go up to €20m.

But here is the batshit crazy part. Assuming that Lyon get all five players (which might happen given the aggressive way they are pursuing both Remy and Gignac), Lyon will be spending at least €83m, not counting incentives. If Lyon end up paying the full asking price for Remy and Gignac, that number could catapult to €98m. Add in those incentives, and Lyon might end up as the second biggest spender this summer after Real Madrid.

Wait.

WHAT?

Gignac has been taking Michael Essien lessons.

Realistically, I expect Aulas to whittle down Gignac’s price a little – at least he could if Toulouse would stop ignoring his phone calls. On the other hand, I think Nice are pretty firm about their price, especially since Remy isn’t sure he wants to return, as opposed to Gignac, who is boycotting training. Lyon would also prefer to sign only one of the two, either Gignac or Remy, though the chief of operations, Marino Faccioli, is keen to point out that Lyon can afford both of them quite easily. But Aulas isn’t sure which club will gave in first, as both Nice and Toulouse can be rather stubborn – and there is always the possibility that neither Gignac or Remy will be released – so for now, Lyon are acting as if they want both.

While I’ve always advocated that one should not be afraid to spend money, I’m a little worried that breaking the bank this summer is more of a reactionary response to losing the title – and everything else – than sound planning. Furthermore, I didn’t even realize Lyon had that much money to spend, especially considering the piss poor season they just had. Granted, Lyon did sell Benzema for €35m and Keita for €8.5m, but that’s pretty much it for Lyon’s sales this summer. Juninho left on a free, and if Fabio Grosso leaves, I don’t see him going for more than €3m. So that’s hardly anything when compared to the expenditures. At the rate Aulas is going, he’s going to make the EPL look like cheapos.

Even Lyon’s alternative targets, left back Andre Santos of Corinthians and Kleber, a striker at Cruzeiro, may each end up costing upwards of €15m. In fact, I don’t think Lyon have any targets this summer under €12m. Now, I realize that prices are inflated all over the globe at the moment, but surely some quality players can be found in the €8m range. I just hope Lyon aren’t deluding themselves into thinking that more expensive = more quality. After all, Juninho, the best OL player ever, came to Lyon as a free agent.

And then there’s the fact that Lyon play in FRANCE. This EPL-esque spending is definitely a world removed from L1’s next biggest spender, Marseille (who, coincidentally, have yet to hit €40m despite bringing in seven players). The last thing I want is for Lyon to go into debt. Even though the departures of Benzema and Juninho have lightened the wage bill, money doesn’t grow on trees, especially in L1.

On the other hand, I’m thrilled that Lyon are finally throwing away the “oh-but-I’m-a-small-club” mentality. Lyon’s expenses are matching their ambitions (though I also said that last season, and we all saw how that turned out), and for once, they’re more concerned with having an awesome team than they are about profit.

Also, it’s kind of cool how Lyon are acting like such assholes in the transfer market. Not that I in anyway want to encourage this sort of behavior, as I always hate it when bigger clubs just waltz in and expect that they can sign our players, but it’s nice to be able to do the same. Because contrary to public belief, Lyon often don’t get their way.

In any event, if Lyon get four of the five players from their list, they will have a squad that can challenge both domestically and in Europe (that being the main goal, I feel). At the very least, L1 promises to be very interesting next season.

Guys, I’ve missed you all! I feel like I’ve been away from this blog for far too long. Thankfully, John stepped up to pick up all my slack, but expect to see more of me around from now on!