Lyon manager Laurent Blanc storms out of his press conference
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‘I’m leaving, bye’: Lyon manager Laurent Blanc storms out of his news conference after questions about the club’s transfer business in January ahead of their Ligue 1 clash with Troyes
- Lyon boss Laurent Blanc stormed out of his press conference on transfer talks
- The former France boss gave a hint that he would leave if he continued
- Blanc left when the subject was finally changed to his next match.
Lyon manager Laurent Blanc stormed out of a news conference following questions about the club’s transfer business in January.
The former France manager initially sought to brush off any transfer-related questions in his pre-match press conference at Troyes.
But it didn’t quite work and in the end Blanc smiled back at the questions and gave an indication to the media that he would leave, if they didn’t change the subject.
The former Bordeaux and PSG manager did exactly that 10 minutes later when a question about the upcoming match finally came up.
His actions regretted that the topic had taken too long to come up and he was not pleased.
Lyon manager Laurent Blanc stormed out of a press conference after transfer questions
The former France manager initially sought to dismiss any transfer-related questions.
‘Alright? I see you and you have no more questions to ask. Leave. Goodbye, said Blanc as he got up.
‘No, but it’s you who decides to talk about Troyes after ten minutes… So thank you and goodbye.’
That followed his initial comments saying: ‘The transfer window is over and we have the team that will finish the season.
We will work and the players will not change. We already had a press conference about the transfer window, so don’t talk to me about the transfer window now. Talk about something else.’
The Ligue 1 outfit picked up the signings of Dejan Lovren, Jeffinho and Amin Sarr during the transfer window, although they did see six players leave.
One such departure was full-back Malo Gusto, who joined Premier League club Chelsea for £26.3m.
Blanc said ‘thank you, goodbye’ to the media before leaving the press conference.
Lyon full-back Malo Gusto joined Chelsea for £26.3m but will remain on loan in France.
However, the France under-21 international will remain on loan at Lyon for the remainder of the 2022-2023 season.
They also let Karl Toko Ekambi and Romain Faivre go on loan to league rivals Rennes and L’Orient respectively, among others.
This is not the first time Blanc has threatened to walk out of a press conference, having also done something similar as PSG boss in 2015 after being questioned about the effect of the Paris terror attacks on his players.
He said: ‘We’re not going to talk about this for the whole press conference, because I guarantee if you ask me one more question about context, I’m leaving.’
Lyon, currently sitting 10th in Ligue 1, take on struggling Troyes tonight as they bid to start their climb up the league table in the second half of the season.