Malang Sarr will not have much cause for celebration when his anniversary comes round on March 12.
The date will mark one year since the former France Under-21 international last played a competitive game. He was on loan at Monaco from Chelsea at the time and was booked during a 1-0 home defeat against Reims. Little has gone right for him since then and friends of the defender’s have told The Athletic they are worried about him. They have never seen him as down as this.
Sarr, who signed a five-year contract when he joined Chelsea as a free agent from Nice in 2020, is the forgotten man at Stamford Bridge.
A move to Le Havre broke down on transfer deadline day at the start of this month, prompting angry accusations from the Ligue 1 club at Chelsea’s conduct. When news broke of the move’s collapse, some Chelsea fans took to social media to mock the defender, summoning unfavourable comparisons with Winston Bogarde. The latter was at Chelsea between 2000-04 and was happy to see out his £40,000-a-week deal having long since been told he was not part of the first-team plans and having been banished to the reserves.
Malang Sarr in action for Monaco while on loan at the French club (Francois Nascimbeni/ AFP)
Sarr is also being handsomely paid. His salary is around £100,000 a week but, unlike Bogarde, he is far from content with his predicament and is desperate to play senior matches again. So what is going on?
Before explaining the current situation it is worth remembering how Sarr was regarded as a player with a lot of promise. In 2018, the CIES Football Observatory ranked him fifth in the world among players to watch out for under the age of 20.
After making 119 appearances for Nice, he secured a move to Chelsea, although he spent the first season on loan at Porto. In 2021-22 he was part of Thomas Tuchel’s squad at Chelsea, making 21 appearances. This included starting both games in their EFL Cup semi-final win over Tottenham Hotspur and being used as a substitute when they won the FIFA Club World Cup for the first time in their history.
But with the club, now under new ownership, signing defenders Kalidou Koulibaly, Wesley Fofana and Marc Cucurella for over £160million ($202m) in the summer of 2022, there was no longer any room for him.
Chelsea agreed a season-long loan with Monaco for the following campaign, which included an option to buy on a permanent basis for €15m (£12.6m, $15.3m). But he made just 17 appearances (12 starts) and his season ended prematurely due to suffering a muscular abdominal injury in training. So it was not too surprising when Monaco decided not to trigger the option.
The injury required surgery, which took place in May. Sarr was able to take part in some pre-season training, but was left out of the first-team tour to the United States under new head coach Mauricio Pochettino. He was sent to train with the under-21s instead and that is what he has been doing ever since.
Such a decision clearly sends a strong message to the player that he is no longer wanted and last summer Sarr’s representatives looked into possible moves to Besiktas, AEK Athens and the Saudi Arabia Pro League, to name just three, but no agreement was reached. Understandably they wanted a player to be ready to feature straightaway, but Sarr was still short of match fitness due to a combination of not playing a game since March and still working his way back from the operation.
A measure of how much Pochettino was aware of Sarr’s circumstances came in an awkward post-match press conference following a home win over Luton Town on August 25. Soon afterwards, the defender was officially omitted from Chelsea’s Premier League squad.
Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino appears not to know who Malang Sarr is. Slight problem with that is that he’s a previous French youth international under contract with… Chelsea. pic.twitter.com/JjfJF7iixF
— Get French Football News (@GFFN) August 26, 2023
It has been quite a humbling situation for Sarr. He no longer has a locker in the first-team building and gets changed with Chelsea’s youngsters in the academy building instead.
Sarr trains with the under-21s on a daily basis except when they are given a day off or have a match. When that is the case, Chelsea look to assign him a coach to either work out on his own or he does a session with a younger age group.
He has not been picked for any under-21 games even though there is a proviso that gives him the chance to be involved (PL2, EFL Trophy and the Premier League International Cup competitions allow a maximum of three overage outfielders, plus one keeper). Like his predecessors, the priority for under-21s coach Mark Robinson is instead to select the youngsters Chelsea are developing. It is worth bearing in mind that it has been very rare in recent years for any senior player to be involved, even if they are part of the first-team plans and working their way back from an injury.
Sources at Chelsea, who wished to remain anonymous to protect their positions, say Sarr also indicated he did not want to be considered for selection regardless. However, this is just part of the story as far as the player is concerned. Sarr did say he would not play for them at the start of the under-21 season yet that was because he did not feel 100 per cent yet. Sarr went on to explain he would be willing to feature when he was. It should not be forgotten that Sarr showed he was prepared to drop down from Tuchel’s squad in May 2022 to help the under-21s beat Tottenham 2-1, a match they had to win to avoid relegation from PL2.
Sarr has remained professional. Turning up to training is part of his contractual obligations but he also wants to stay fit to secure a move elsewhere.
But as a source, also speaking anonymously for the same reasons, close to Sarr explains: “I have never seen him as low as this. This is the first time I have seen him like this. He tries to change his mental state, but it is hard when you are not playing. He is not in the first-team dressing room anymore, he is with the kids in the other building. He feels outside the group. He tries to hide his feelings, but I know him, what he is really feeling.
“He wants to play football and works hard for that. He is completely fit. But at the moment, he does not know where he is going to play. Friends and family go stay with him occasionally. It is important for him to have people around him.
“He loved playing under Tuchel. But some of the closest friends he made, like N’Golo Kante and Mason Mount, have left. He goes to train because it is his job but I know he finds it very hard because any footballer who knows they are not going to play matches will find it difficult.”
The events of the last transfer window have not improved his mood. Chelsea agreed to let him leave as a free agent and Le Havre ended up providing the most attractive proposal.
But the move became complicated because Sarr wanted to agree a pay-off for the 18 months remaining on his contract first. As with most football sagas, what happened next is seen differently by the parties involved.
Let’s start with how Sarr believes things transpired. Initially, he asked for the 18 months to be paid up in full, but The Athletic has been told a compromise was reached where he would receive more than 50 per cent of the salary owed until June 30, 2025.
Sources close to Sarr say Chelsea then changed their mind and offered a lower percentage. The 25-year-old still agreed to it because he wanted to secure the move to Le Havre.
Sarr travelled to France to have the medical and expected the transfer to happen, only to then receive a call minutes before the deadline from Chelsea saying he would not be paid anything at all and the deal was off.
This version of events does seem to correlate with what Le Havre director Mathieu Bodmer told French newspaper Paris Normandie: “What Chelsea did to Malang Sarr was disgraceful,” he said. “With just a few details still to be worked out, they did a U-turn. They gave the youngster the go-ahead to travel, and a financial agreement had been reached for the 18 months of his remaining contract at Chelsea.
“However, on several occasions, they went back on their agreement, and then gave it again. And once the player had agreed to make a big effort, to come to us on a tiny salary, just to play football, they blocked him.
“Everything was OK, the contract had even been submitted to the league (LFP), but we never received Chelsea’s cancellation. In the end, they just told him he wouldn’t be leaving and they didn’t even answer the phone anymore.”
However, Chelsea do not recognise this interpretation. The club confirm they were prepared to let Sarr leave for free rather than potentially hold things up by asking for a transfer fee. Sarr had made it clear to them he wanted to leave to get on with his career and they did not want to stand in his way. But in return for waiving their right to ask for a fee, they made it clear no compensation would be paid to Sarr. To them, it felt like a fair way of resolving things.
On deadline day, Chelsea had few distractions and all lines of communication with Sarr were open. That was in stark contrast to 12 months earlier when they were busy completing the €120m signing of Enzo Fernandez from Benfica in the closing stages of the window, which may have had an impact on Hakim Ziyech’s loan to Paris-Saint Germain collapsing. Chelsea did not purchase anyone and the only outgoings were Armando Broja and Andrey Santos, who moved to Fulham and Strasbourg on loan respectively.
Sarr travelled to Le Havre of his own accord to negotiate and by the time he let Chelsea know he was willing to accept their conditions regarding the manner of his departure, it was too late to complete the paperwork. Chelsea also believe Sarr’s switch did not happen because he was not willing to accept the salary Le Havre offered. Inevitably, it was a lot lower than what he is on at Chelsea. As you would expect, when The Athletic put Chelsea’s account to sources close to Sarr, they insisted it was not the case.
Who was in the right (or wrong) does not really matter now. The most important question to answer is what happens now. Well, Sarr is resigned to seeing out the season as he started it — training with the youngsters. Chelsea are still willing to let him leave as a free agent again in the summer but whether the pay-off issue will emerge again remains to be seen.
Sarr does not know if Le Havre are going to renew their interest, but is desperate to secure a move from Chelsea to rebuild his career. “Malang has no regrets about joining Chelsea,” the source concludes. “He has happy memories, particularly from his time under Tuchel. But he just wants to play football again and does not care if he is paid less than he is on now.”
The current scenario is certainly not a positive one for either camp. The sooner they go their separate ways, the better.
(Top photo: Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)
