The perennially underperforming Memphis Depay was sold to Lyon last Friday after failing to make his mark since being signed on by Louis Van Gaal back in 2015.
‘The Special One’, however, has been rather unappreciative of his still debated talents and given him just a single solitary start and eight appearances all of this season.
He has since been carted off to Olympique Lyonnais, but not before the wily Mourinho inserted a buy-back clause in the contract. In effect, the Lyon move is an unsubtle audition for Depay: if he performs well, he might possibly rejoin the Red Devils’ first team. If not, expect swift oblivion.
Depay, however, has nothing but sweet words for the wily Portuguese with the word ‘great’ featuring too often in his description to make me a little suspicious.
“His words were nice,” Depay reportedly told OL TV when referring to Mourinho.
“In Manchester, I always worked as I had to. For me personally, it wasn’t all that easy, I needed to play. But we didn’t have a bad relationship.
“He’s a great coach and a great person. Now we’ll see here how I play. In any case, I think he has said good things about me.”
On the reason for the buy-back clause and future of his former player, Mourinho said, “Of course, because potentially he is a very good player.
“I think when Mr Van Gaal decided to buy him, he did well. He knew him very well from the national team.”
“He was very young when in the World Cup. He had flashes of top quality.”
“He was playing well in Holland – we know that the Dutch league is not the same but he was showing very good things.
“I think Mr Van Gaal and Manchester United they did well to buy him.
“He didn’t succeed in this 18 months, I would say, but he is very young so I think it is important for the club to keep control of this talent.
“And we all wish that he plays very, very well at Olympique Lyon and why not to come back because everyone here likes him.”
independent.co.uk
