In Marseille, the Jonathan Clauss case made headlines this winter. Under contract with OM until 2025, the 31-year-old right-back was clearly pushed out by his managers. Attacked on his daily investment, the French international (10 caps, 1 goal) was accused of preserving himself with a view to Euro 2024, while his club was going through a results crisis. A tension which led to two very notable media outings by President Pablo Longoria and sports advisor Medhi Benatia.
The latter did not go too far on February 18 at the microphone of Canal+. “I arrived in November. I was warned about players whose behavior was sometimes borderline. Jonathan was one of these players. (…) Claus? We had a problem, but it’s back. He has a contract for another year and a half. We didn’t want to take him out for the sake of taking him out, that’s not it at all, we noted that he wasn’t playing at his level, he was received several times by the coach about behavioral problems, he knows why.”
The French staff in contact with Clauss
A very muscular public attack which caused a scandal, especially since OM lost immediately in Brest (0-1). Since then, Jean-Louis Gasset has replaced Gennaro Gattuso and the Héraultais has chosen calinotherapy. “He’s a squad player. I spoke with him, I told him that I was there for a 4 month mission and that we would finish it together. Everything that happened before, I don’t know.”, declared the new Marseille coach on February 22. Since then, Gasset has started Clauss in every match, except against Montpellier, a match for which the defender was suspended. Maintained in his post, Jonathan Clauss can hope to experience the end of the season without too much disruption.
But The Team reveals that a man carefully followed the evolution of this file: Didier Deschamps. The coach knows that his right-backs (Koundé and Clauss) are going through difficult times and that he doesn’t really have any solutions behind, apart from the traditional repositioning of Benjamin Pavard on the right. The Bayonnais therefore logically followed the Clauss case closely. The sports daily reveals that DD feared that the Marseille defender would be left behind until the end of the season and that the Blues staff spent a lot of time on the phone with Clauss to sort out this imbroglio. The return to calm established by Gasset must have reassured everyone. Even if in Marseille, and especially during this season full of twists and turns, no one is safe from new madness.
