Why is Olivier Ntcham in the news today? An ex-Celtic player talking about why he left the club. This will always pique media interest, and it does not even seem to matter whether what he’s saying is strictly accurate or not.
And let me tell you, it isn’t even close to being accurate. Even the parts that are factually correct are blatantly skewed.
Olivier Ntcham claims he left Celtic because he was “tired of winning.”
He claims that the club fell out with him because he made that decision. There were stories, at one point, about Porto wanting to sign him, but whether they would have followed it up with an actual bid nobody knows. He always believed that we rejected a bid for him.
I do know that by the time he left, people at Celtic were sick of the sight of him. He would have been available for next to nothing at that point, but Porto didn’t bother to even discuss it. By then we wanted him out far more than he wanted to leave.
The real problem was that he looked like he would stay in spite of everyone wanting him gone.
Initially, Ntcham looked like a footballer. But he had attitude problems right from the start.
By the time he left we’d watched him huff and puff around the pitch. We’d seen him actually chuck in during one game at St Mirren and get himself sent off because he clearly couldn’t be bothered out on the pitch, one of the most unprofessional things I’ve ever witnessed.
He blew hot and cold. He could look like a world beater in one game and a pissed-up grouse beater in another. It depended on the mood he was in. And we didn’t imagine that. We sent him out on loan to Marseille so determined we were to get him off the wage bill; the manager Andre Villas-Boas was so incensed at the board bringing him in above his explicit rejection that he resigned rather than accept it. You will never see a clearer denunciation of a signing.
He ended up at Swansea. He played a lot of games for Swansea.
Yet even they tired of his antics, and this culminated in their decision to let him go to Turkey after he had called the manager the night before a game against Birmingham and said he didn’t want to play. No reason offered. Out of the blue. He just decided that he could not be bothered.
That’s the sort of player he is; utterly self-centred, occasionally lazy. For all his talent – and he had vast talent, that’s what made it most frustrating – you could not rely on him.
I love his assertion that he left because he got bored winning.
If he’d been capable of disciplining himself and wasn’t such a petulant clown he might have gone to another top club.
But he left Celtic for the English Championship. From there he’s ended up in a modest club in a country where directors run onto the pitch and attack referees. In short, it’s a good job he’s bored with winning things. He probably never needs to worry about that again.
So tired of winning things he has won hee-haw since. Never saw him as a talent at all, mr inconsistent for sure, one paced.
Glad he is away.
Great article every young boy who dreams of becoming a footballer want to win trophies medals etc. so for him to come out with this kind of statement is ridiculous and selfish good riddance no more winning anything ever again Hail Hail ?????
This Ntcham to Porto is one of the biggest urban legends in Celtic history. I am based here in Porto and work as a camera operator for the news department of the Clubs TV channel so constantly talk to the journalists. They have assured me that the rumour came from a french source and that as far as they were concerned it was completely unfounded, especially as the coach Conceição likes his midfielders in his own image .. hard tackling .. 100% commitment every challenge .. now I ask you does that sound like Ntcham?
As an aside the former manager Andre Vilas Boas was just last Saturday elected the new President of FC Porto replacing the legendary Pinto da Costa who had been the President for over 40 years, but financial instability allied to a horrific league campaign where they will finish maximum in 3rd place but could actually finish in 5th (Braga is 1 point behind and Guimarães 3 points behind … with Benfica in second 13 points ahead of Porto with Sporting flying 18 points ahead of Porto – Even though in the 2 home matches Porto destroyed Benfica 5-0, and just last weekend were 5 minutes away from beating Sporting 2-0 (Defensive frailties allowed Gyokeres to score twice in a frantic 5 minutes)
A couldabeen but wasn’t. The ultimate nearly man. I’d actually forgotten about you, Olivier. And I remember Jim Conway, John Colrain and Charlie Tully. What does that say about you?
Fair comment (in the context of my other post).
He was ordinary with a few decent performances but a pish professional and subsequent moves proves this, fuck me we have had loads of players better than him leave us,no great loss.
One of the laziest men i have ever seen on a football pitch. He always thought he was better than he was. Cant believe hes still conning teams into believing hes a footballer.
I was also under the impression that Porto tabled an actual bid for him (I think around the summer of 2018) and that Rodgers dismissed it.
https://www.scotsman.com/sport/rugby-union/olivier-ntcham-breaks-silence-over-celtics-rejection-of-summer-porto-bid-235105
There are other easily findable examples. These don’t mean that that is necessarily true, of course. But it was certainly reported that way and never denied by either club, so far as I’m aware.
£15m(ish) struck me as a good fee for him, and a very good return on our investment from a year earlier. I remember quite a few fellow Celtic fans saying this was a low-ball offer at the time (but time has certainly shown them to be wrong in this case – in general, actual money offered is the very best indication of a player’s actual value).
I largely agree with your overall assessment though. Possibly the most talented midfielder we’ve had in the last decade or so. Turned up in some really big games. But, very inconsistent (under both Rodgers and Lennon).