This is how it ends, then. Monaco’s glorious money-spinning project, so potent and so impressive for the better part of four seasons under Leonardo Jardim, went through one too many rotations and now the manager has left the club by mutual consent. The results – with no wins in their last 10 games – weren’t pretty, but Monaco are in this position because they were short-termist, they over-reached in the transfer market and they alienated their key players.
Jardim’s career before joining Monaco was an itinerant one. He spent single seasons at Braga, Olympiacos and Sporting Clube de Portugal before being appointed to succeed Claudio Ranieri in June 2014. Little was expected of Monaco in Jardim’s first season in charge. Owner Dmitry Rybolovlev’s finances had changed to the extent where the club’s flagship signings, James Rodríguez and Radamel Falcao, were moved on – Rodríguez to Real Madrid for €80m and Falcao on loan to Manchester United to take him off the wage bill – and this process of exporting players for big fees has continued under Jardim. Over the last four seasons, the club have brought in more than €750m from selling players.
When Jardim arrived at the club, he was thought of as a prosaic manager. Indeed, in his first season in charge, Monaco had the tightest defence in Ligue 1. They scored fewer goals than 13th-place Caen but still managed to finish third in Ligue 1, pipping Marseille and Saint-Étienne to the final Champions League spot. They also impressed in Europe in Jardim’s debut season, winning their Champions League group, beating Arsenal in the round of 16 and only losing in the quarter-finals to eventual finalists Juventus by a single goal.
That version of Monaco was defensively sound and relied on the pace and inventiveness of Bernardo Silva, Yannick Carrasco and Anthony Martial in attack. That trio scored nearly half of Monaco’s goals, with scant support from their defensively sound midfield in a 4-3-3.
After the sales of Martial, Carrasco, Geoffrey Kondogbia and Layvin Kurzawa in the summer of 2015, Jardim patched the team together for the new season by bringing players in on loan. With senior pros such as Ricardo Carvalho and Jérémy Toulalan another year older, the once-impregnable defence was far less reliable. Qualification for the Champions League was secured again, but this was more down to the lack of quality in the chasing pack than to any real achievement from Monaco. There were, however, some green shoots in the form of Thomas Lemar, Almamy Touré, Tiemoué Bakayoko and Kylian Mbappé, who were all starting to flourish in increased roles.
The following season, 2016-17, Monaco won the Ligue 1 title and made it all the way to the Champions League semi-finals. They were the team of the moment in Europe, but it should be noted that they went into that campaign after the one summer in recent years when they have made an effort to strengthen in a balanced way. Naturally, they signed some intriguing young prospects (Youssef Aït Bennasser and Jorge Serrano), but their main focus was on signing players with experience who could address holes in the squad.
Their two new full-backs they signed in the summer of 2016, Benjamin Mendy and Djibril Sidibé, were both fairly young, but they were experienced. Mendy had played more than 150 matches – including games in the Champions League with Marseille – since breaking through with Le Havre in Ligue 2 and Sidibé was on the cusp of his first France call-up. Kamil Glik, the centre-back they signed from Torino, was less of a household name, but his arrival gave the team a much-needed replacement for Carvalho and it also helped Jemerson, who had struggled to impress since arriving that January. The club’s ownership showed faith in Jardim by holding on to their primary assets and bringing in players who had potential sell-on value but were also proven at a level sufficient to keep Lemar, Fabinho and Silva in the fold.
The club adopted a similar approach last summer when replacing Mendy, Mbappé, and Bakayoko. Keita Baldé, Terence Kongolo and Youri Tielemans were young, but they also had experience in quality leagues, in their countries’ international set-ups and in European competitions. However, they struggled to adapt to French football and did not thrive under Jardim. Kongolo and Baldé have already left the club, while Tielemans has been an ineffective presence in midfield despite being a regular.
Despite Jardim’s failure to bring the best from the new signings, Monaco still finished second in the league last season. Fabinho and Lemar moved on this summer and Monaco’s good form now seems to be a thing of the past. There have been injuries – particularly to Rony Lopes, Stevan Jovetic and record signing Aleksandr Golovin – but more worrying has been the lack of response from the players. Even the normally reliable Glik, Falcao and Sidibé have been well below their best this season.
One can imagine the frustrations of these players. They must surely feel that – because of their age or injury history – they are now the leftovers from the glory of two years ago. They know that putting together another set of determined performances will only lead to (at best) a top-three finish, with progress in the Champions League perhaps a small bonus. They are unlikely to win anything and know they are no longer young enough to be seen as a worthwhile investment by more monied “bigger” club. How could a manager in Jardim’s situation possibly motivate these veteran players?
Monaco are not in this situation because of Jardim’s management but because their transfer policy is fundamentally broken, an idea taken well past its logical conclusion. Jardim was linked with a host of jobs this summer – including Real Madrid and Arsenal – and rightfully so. José Mourinho, Niko Kovac and Julen Lopetegui have all come under fire in recent weeks and Jardim deserves to be linked to any potential vacancies.
By failing to keep the more experienced members of the squad within shouting distance of some meaningful competitive goals, Monaco have not only lost (and undermined) their manager, but they have also become victims of their own financial success and quixotism. By parting ways with Jardim, they have also lost one of the most versatile, hard-working and intelligent managers to grace Ligue 1 in the 21st century.
The Guardian Sport