On Thursday, OGC Nice officially presented their first five summer signings. A first chance for the president and the coach to give us a progress report on Le Gym’s mercato.

"The OGC Nice project continues. I would like to congratulate the recruitment unit, the coach and Julien (Fournier). We want to have the players at the coach's disposal as soon as possible," said Jean-Pierre Rivère, before Patrick Vieira followed suit: "Having them at this time of the season is a great satisfaction and the result of a lot of hard work further up the chain."

When asked about whether the club would sign a ‘big name’, the president clarified: "We don't intend to spend a lot of money. We have a track record and we take the players who allow us to reach this level in terms of their quality and their state of mind. We want a team with character. Just because we have a shareholder with more money doesn't mean we should spend it any old how. There are some options that we did not follow up on because the sums of money were too large. The quality of the shareholder allowed us to make a very interesting start to the marcato in the sense that we were able to buy before selling, which is very positive. What is important is not to have a big name but a big team. If the team plays well, performs well and grows, then we'll talk about OGC Nice.”

The coach echoed those sentiments: "What's important is to have players who match our game philosophy. The aim was to improve the squad in relation to the weaknesses we'd identified: competitive spirit, technical quality in the last 30 metres, aggressiveness and experience. I'm convinced we have what it takes to do a good job."

The two men were also questioned about the next steps in the mercato. Jean-Pierre Rivère firstly addressed the issue of the transfer market taking a break from 10 July: "It's a rule we know. We will have to adapt and we will continue afterwards. That doesn't stop us from working. The deals get done when they have to be done, but we won't do things in a hurry before it closes."

As far as future moves are concerned, Patrick Vieira said: "With the arrivals of Robson and Flavius we have what it takes in central defence. On the offensive side, we have identified the profiles of players and we are discussing whether there is a possibility of making one or two transfers." Concerning any possible departures, Jean-Pierre Rivère assured: "There will be several phases in this mercato and some players will have to leave so that we don't have too many players and then complete the team. Having 24-25 players would be good."

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