Christopher Jullien has been speaking to French media outlet La Provence about his former Celtic teammate and fellow countryman Olivier Ntcham’s loan move from Celtic.
Ntcham made his debut for Marseille in midweek in the French Cup tie at Auxerre and made an immediate impression on his new club. The former Manchester City midfielder will if things go well complete his transfer to the Provence side in the summer, with Celtic simply recouping the fee that was paid to City. Frustratingly Celtic knocked back a bid believed to have been for £13.5m from Porto in the 2018 summer transfer window.
Ntcham is clearly a gifted footballer but has to use Jullien’s word stagnated in Glasgow over the past few years as his attitude has been all wrong. The covid lockdown restrictions and the long gap from March to August last year without football simply added to his desire to leave Scotland.
Neil Lennon recently told BBC Sportsound how life for the moody Les Bleus Bhoy had become difficult. “It’s not the club that he’s unhappy with. I think it’s just his life in Glasgow.
“He was a bit fed up and indifferent about the Scottish game, and I think he wanted a new challenge, like a few of them have maintained since the start of the season. It’s a difficult thing to claw them back in. He’s a talented player. This time last year he was absolutely superb, between January and March. Between then and the lockdown, something got disconnected with Olivier; he couldn’t get that desire or passion back to play,” the Celtic manager said.
Now Christopher Jullien, who joined Celtic from Toulouse in a £7m transfer, has been giving his own insight into why Ntcham needed to leave Celtic and why he believes that he will be a success at Marseille.
“He had taken a step forward in Glasgow but he was starting to stagnate, because he remains in Scotland,” Jullien admitted. “He needed a new challenge. I see him succeeding at Marseille, he has everything he needs to achieve this.
“This stage will be able to make him grow even more. He has always had the qualities to aim for a major championship like Ligue 1.”
“He wants to play everywhere, to bring his technical touch. Sometimes, in training, he gave me problems because I wanted to win and he just wanted to play.
“He was our technical leader. He was never a guy who spoke a lot, but a leader in the field by his actions and his technical touch. “
