Coaching FC Nantes is “an honor”, ​​proclaimed Thursday Jocelyn Gourvennec who replaced Pierre Aristouy, sacked the day before, on the club bench where he “felt the best in (his) playing career”.

“Being coach of FC Nantes is an honor for me, as, I think, the coaches who played here and who go through this position may have felt,” explained the former Canaries playmaker. from 1995 to 1998.

In recent years, Michel der Zakarian, Vahid Halilodzic, Antoine Kombouaré and even Aristouy have managed the first team after having worn the jersey.

“FC Nantes is the club where I felt the best in my career and in my life as a player. It’s a club that meant a lot to me. I spent three years there, I feel like I spent 10 years there and it marked me for life,” he explained, who also played in Lorient, Rennes and Marseille. .

Coached then by club legends Claude Suaudeau and Reynald Denoueix, he admitted that this position is also “a responsibility because we have a heritage which is very important”.

“There have been very great coaches and coaches who will certainly never be equaled because they were extraordinary. But these people gave birth, in me as in others, to the desire to cultivate a spirit, a game, and to live high-level football with principles,” explained Gourvennec.

The club’s deputy general manager Frank Kita, also present at the press conference, justified the dismissal of Pierre Aristouy by the “bad turn” taken by the team which has only gleaned one point over the last four days.

If Nantes is still 11th in the standings, “we thought that waiting any longer would be dangerous for the club. The end of the season (the last one, where Nantes escaped on the final day, editor’s note), was a little traumatic,” he admitted.

The choice of Gourvennec to replace Aristouy was “natural”, he continued.

“I admire his experience, he is a coach who knows Ligue 1, so we are not taking any risks,” further quoted the president’s son Waldemar Kita.

“He has the characteristics of the coach that I like: he has significant authority (…), rigor and above all, what I felt is that he was very motivated.”

The task entrusted to Gourvennec is not simple, especially since his first two matches will be against Nice (2nd), at La Beaujoire, on Saturday, and at the Parc des Princes against PSG eight days later and his players will have to be fully invested .

“The real danger in the life of a group is the moods of each person (…) it is an egocentric behavior which goes against what we want to put forward. place,” he explained.

“We need to do things together more than ever,” he added.

Concerning his first projects, he pointed out the fragility of the Canaries rearguard, found wanting 23 times in 13 matches.

“The observation we can make is that we concede too many goals. There are certainly things to correct, (…and) to rebalance in terms of the general organization of the team,” he noted.

“And then (there is) some “pep” to find to be more dynamic, more intense too. And do simple things. It’s often the most complicated thing to do, to play simple, but that’s what we’re going to aim for,” he added.