Barring a last minute surprise, Raymond Domenech will become the new coach of FC Nantes, very poorly classified in Ligue 1. Very divisive personality, fairly defensive game… For club fans, the arrival of the 2006 vice-world champion on the Banc des Canaris is not good news for the return phase.

Would the Christmas present be poisoned under the trees of Nantes?

Raymond Domenech is expected to be appointed Canaries coach on Thursday, even if the Nantes club explained on Wednesday that negotiations were still ongoing.

The former coach of the Blues could thus find a sideline, ten years after the fiasco of Knysna, at the South African World Cup.

Since this sad episode, Raymond Domenech has not trained but still suffers from a bad image.

He will have a lot to do in six months, because Nantes is in great difficulty in Ligue 1 and the supporters are far from welcoming him with open arms.

Domenech on the bench?

"Just crazy"

This probable appointment is in any case not unanimous on social networks.

Some Nantes supporters posted a photo of a bus to recall the sad memory of the Knysna strike.

Others recalled the spicy exchange between the 2006 vice-world champion coach and the club's

community manager

: in November 2017, he commented on Twitter on the heavy defeat of FC Nantes 4 goals to 1 against PSG by criticizing Canaries' “Mercedes double bus strategy”.

The return of the boomerang was not long in coming: "Raymond, not sure you are the best person to talk about the bus."

@RaymondDomenech, not sure if you are the best person to talk about buses ❌

- FC Nantes (@FCNantes) November 18, 2017

Raymond Domenech will he be at the level to keep Nantes in Ligue 1?

The technician has not coached a club since 1993. "I am really disappointed, when you know what we have known", regrets Sébastien, a supporter of the club, in reference to other more popular coaches passed by the club , like the Italian Claudio Ranieri.

"There, we find ourselves after thirteen years of presidency of Waldemar Kita with Raymond Domenech. It's just crazy."

A more than atypical personality

Raymond Domenech, former defender (very) rough on the man, would not have either the house spirit, which advocates a game licked, turned forward.

“We are at odds with the Nantes-style playing philosophy. We hope that he will continue the good work started at the start of the season and that he will lead us to Ligue 2,” quips Frédéric, another club supporter.

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There are therefore many reservations, especially since we know the impulsive side of the former coach of the Blues, capable of losing control in the middle of a press conference.

"You are interested in the smell of blood. I am happy with only one thing: that the emergency laws and the guillotine no longer exist. Because otherwise, I see a few here who would have been clever. pleasure to send me on the scaffold ", he had thus launched to the journalists, in 2008.

What role against Kita?

If his arrival is confirmed, Raymond Domenech will have in front of him a president with a strong temperament, Waldemar Kita, who has already worn out fifteen coaches since his acquisition of the club in 2007. It is also against this management that the ultras of the club manifest every week or so.

To this must be added the judicial shadow that hangs around the club, with searches carried out at the club's headquarters on December 8, as part of an investigation into the president's finances, to obtain a complex picture.

Criticized by supporters, the new pair formed by Waldemar Kita and Raymond Domenech could therefore spark off in such a context.

But can he really save a club from the descent?