Nice goes on the attack: Odsonne Edouard soon to be there, Mahdi Camara rejected, Haise calls for three reinforcements

Terem Moffi had no real competition since the departures of Gaëtan Laborde (Al-Diriyah) and Evann Guessand (Aston Villa). The young Bernard Nguene (19 years old) made him breathe in the last ten minutes Tuesday evening in Lisbon but Franck Haise lacked a real alternative to the Nigerian to fully enter his season. After the Ransford Königsdörffer twist, the leaders experienced the Mahdi Camara hiccup on Tuesday evening, we will come back to that. On the other hand, they are very close to completing the arrival of the second center forward hoped for by their coach with Odsonne Edouard (Crystal Palace).

Edouard returns to France to relaunch himself

The 27-year-old French striker was part of a shortlist that also included the names of Lassine Sinayoko (Auxerre, 25) and El Bilal Touré (Atalanta Bergamo, 23), and it is on him that the Nice management finally accelerated in recent days in order to complete as soon as possible a transfer, the amount of which has not been leaked. Confidence reigns in the staff regarding an official announcement by tomorrow in order to be able to line up on the first match sheet of the Championship on Saturday, against Toulouse.

It would be a return to his roots for the man who left Ligue 1 and... Téfécé in 2016-2017 (16 appearances, 1 goal) to join Celtic Glasgow . Trained at Paris Saint-Germain, the Guyanese, only 19 years old when he arrived in Scotland, exploded in the green and white jersey by dominating the scorers' rankings twice (2019-20, 2020-21), gleaning the title of best player of the 2019-20 season (87 goals, 37 assists in total, in 179 appearances). Crystal Palace had then invested a little over sixteen million euros in 2021 to attract him to the Premier League.

After scoring around twenty goals in three years, Odsonne Edouard was unable to regain his confidence last season during a loan spell at Leicester, during which he barely played (113 minutes played, 0 goals). OGC Nice is therefore betting on relaunching him in a country and a league he knows well, and in a dressing room where he could bring his wealth of European experience.

Mahdi Camara chose money

Future ex-Brest player Mahdi Camara also had a solid background from Eric Roy's team's fine Champions League campaign last season. Brest and the 27-year-old player had agreed to a transfer to Nice for around €8 million. Then Rennes, and more specifically Arnaud Pouille, entered the fray. Determined to put a spanner in the works for Franck Haise's Gym, the Rennes president upped the ante with an offer of an immeasurable salary to divert the Martigues player from his desire to return to the South of France (€350,000 per month, according to our indiscretions).

This is a new blow for a club already faced with injuries, a sick player (Boudaoui, see box) and a complicated start to the season in the Champions League preliminary round. The step was probably too high, but the squad was surely also too short to calmly prepare for such an event. Franck Haise called for three reinforcements in the post-match press conference on Tuesday evening, a striker, a midfielder and "a surprise" . For example, a left piston to refocus Melvin Bard as a left-sided defender? It's a hypothesis given Dante's persistent knee problems.

A midfielder could also arrive by Saturday. Several names have been mentioned in the press, such as Trabzonspor's Frenchman Batista Mendy, but it is uncertain whether the preferred target of the last few hours will be one of them.