Hello! This is Jennifer from the Bordeaux Offside. Sam contacted me recently after the Obertan transfer to write a little about Obertan for you guys, so here I go.
Gabriel Obertan, affectionately called Gaby by Bordeaux fans (such as myself) joined Bordeaux not too long ago in 2005 after training at Clairefontaine. He spent a season playing for the CFA (youth) team with other youngsters such as Grégory Sertic, with whom he makes a pretty good partnership. He fared fairly well in the CFA, and also with accordance to his age he was promoted to the first team and signed a pro contract, but for that first professional season he stayed mostly on the bench, most of his appearances as subs (he did put in a winner against dreadful ASSE).
This past season, he was quite impressive for me. It was evident that he has lots of talent, and none of the staff or players ignored that. He extended with Bordeaux and Blanc talked about his talent. I can tell you that he really came in for me at a difficult time during CL qualifications when Gourcuff was out on injury. He filled in Gourcuff’s role pretty decently and was even praised by Blanc for the good job he did. He even scored a brace in a Coupe de la Ligue game that made us all ecstatic.
I think one of the main reasons he never quite broke out into our squad is simply that we haven’t quite tapped into his talents. It’s the curse of many a young player. Without much playing experience, you don’t know if the decisions you make are the right ones, and Gaby made many subpar decisions on the pitch when he played. It’s that indecision that Blanc didn’t trust, and the lack of experience at that level of playing is dire when you’re trying to win the title. Gaby has a great deal of technical proficiency; he IS a technical player but not a strategically player. He needs to work on communicating with the rest of the players and making better decisions.
At the beginning of the year, I compiled a list of the biggest in Bordeaux in 2008. This was what I wrote for Gaby:
Biggest Promise: Gabriel Obertan
Gaby has all the makings of a star (in the strict non-womanizing, non-Drama Queen, excellent footballer way). A loan away will allow him he the experience he needs to excel. FC Nantes really wants him now, too. Not surprising.
Gaby did get that loan, to FC Lorient. That was all we had hoped for him, to get to a smaller L1 club and get more experience, and come back to shine. He was off to a great start with a goal and I think he even started again Lyon. Christian Gourcuff is quite a conservative coach though, and didn’t give Gaby too much confidence or playing time, and after a few bad performances Gaby fell out of favour, making his loan a terrible one.
I know a lot of people are complaining about how Gaby isn’t a goal machine (it’s true; his goals are a rare occasion for celebration... I’ve only personally seen 4), but this is a young player, something like a diamond in the rough that needs a lot of polishing and playing time. With the experience and the right team, he really will shine. And while I don’t believe United is the place to accomplishment (for me it makes more sense to stay at Bordeaux seeing as a lot of players are departing…), but he does deserve a chance at United and I hope Sir Alex would give him that. I can only wish him the best of luck.
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