Olympic Lyonnaise director of football and former player Juninho has confirmed that the club expects to say goodbye to some of its players in the current transfer window with the club not in any European club competition next season.
The sporting director confirmed to the press that despite some imminent departures, he is not worried about how the club will perform next season as they finished the 2019/20 season in 7th position just one point short of a Europa League spot after the league was ended prematurely due to the coronavirus.
Despite its poor finish, the club’s striker Moussa Dembele had 16 goals from 28 matches finishing third on the highest goalscorer’s table behind Monaco’s Wissam Ben Yedder, and PSG’s Kylian Mbappe. While the team recorded the highest home win with a 6-0 win over Angers in August, and a joint biggest away win for its win 4-0 over Nimes.
Unfortunately, Lyon could only keep eight clean sheets a joint lowest in the league alongside Metz, Rennes, Montpellier, and Strasbourg.
However, Lyon has been in excellent form in the Champions League after they overcame Italian giant Juventus and premier league club Manchester city to get to the semifinal of the competition before they were eventually eliminated by Bayern Munich 3-0 on Wednesday after they wasted a handful of chances.
Their run in the competition has seen some of their players linked to moves away with Chelsea, Manchester city rumored to be interested in their striker Dembele, while Aouar is also said to be wanted by Barcelona new manager Ronald Koeman and club captain Memphis Depay.
Speaking to RMC Sport, the former player admitted
“The aim now is to continue working, immediately with Ligue 1, there are no presents. We will have to work. If we continue like this, we will be back in this competition. When you are well paid, you need motivation every day; we are going to concentrate on Ligue 1. There are the basics.
“There will be departures, but I am not worried. When you have players who play very well in a competition like this, like Moussa and Houssem…We will have to show the same spirit to be back in the Champions League next season.”
On the match itself, Juninho said: “We are all sad, it is not easy. But we are going out with our heads held high, I am proud of the players, the staff. We accept this. We respected our gameplan.
“You need a lot of luck and efficacy to beat a team like this. Maybe if we had scored one or two goals at the beginning of the match…I am proud of the squad, I thank the supporters for their incredible support, we felt a strong energy. I wish PSG good luck, that they show people that Ligue 1 is not what they think it is.
“We started well, with two or three chances, Karl hits the post. We had to at least score one. They caused us problems between the lines. The hardest thing was to play the ball out from the back. We saw that it did not work for RB Leipzig
