Oh Alou

By: Inara | June 23rd, 2007

Alou Diarra is not willing to let bygones be bygones.

Despite the resignation of arch nemesis Gerard Houllier, Diarra refuses to consider staying at Lyon, even though he would get a fresh start under Alain Perrin. So reluctantly, Aulas is allowing him to look at other options.

Options which, rather strangely, Diarra has aplenty. For a guy who’s barely played all year, he’s attracted the attention of many top clubs, including Juventus and Bayern Munich.

Diarra, who’s been feeling wanted for the first time all year, is taking his sweet time as he blatantly ignores Aulas’s June 30th transfer deadline and tries to find ways to inconvenience Lyon as much as possible.

First, he announced that he wanted to play for a club that will be in the Champions League next year. That got Werder Bremen interested, who promptly offered Miroslav Klose in exchange.

But then Diarra said that he wanted to play in England, which caused Portsmouth to submit a €9m bid.

Lyon accepted the offer, but Diarra turned it down, this time saying that Portsmouth wasn’t big enough. Newcastle then entered the picture, Sam Allardyce no doubt interested in acquiring a midfield destroyer that was sadly underused at one of the top teams in Europe.

BUT (and you knew this was coming, right?), Diarra decided not to rule out staying in France, and Bordeaux, who will be bleeding after Julien Faubert and Rio Mavuba leave this summer, also decided they want in. Except Bordeaux can’t afford Diarra and want him on loan instead, which is what Lyon want to avoid at all costs (Aulas doesn’t want to pay the salary of a player who would be playing for one of Lyon’s domestic rivals).

So where will Alou end up? His transfer might turn out to be as drawn out as Mahamadou Diarra’s last season, which was completed on the final day of the summer transfer deadline. So we might have to wait until August 31st to find out where Diarra’s destination (which would be his one year anniversary with Lyon…how poetic).

For those of you needing a recap of Diarra’s one year love affair with Houllier, it goes like this: Diarra, who turned down a move to Roma in order to be the new Mahamadou Diarra at Lyon, spent most of the season on Lyon’s bench due to Jeremy Toulalan’s superb form. After losing his place on the France NT to Toulalan as well, Diarra began to vocally complain about his lack of starting opportunities, and Houllier, who was of the opinion that players should be seen and not heard, lost patience with him as the year went on. The straw that broke Houllier’s back, however, was during the Coupe de la Ligue final, when a very pissed off Diarra overturned a table in the locker room because he wasn’t on the list of players for the match. Houllier then banished him to the reserves (you can read about that here). Diarra, who still hadn’t learned to keep his mouth shut, spoke out again, which promoted Houllier to say some very harsh things about him. Ouch.

P.S. Alou means “potato” in Bengali. I guess that’s why I can’t take him seriously.