OM: Acherchour slams De Zerbi’s remarks — “This isn’t a reality TV show!”

We thought the win over Paris FC would finally bring a bit of calm, but Roberto De Zerbi reignited the storm. At his press conference, the Italian coach reached out to Adrien Rabiot, saying he “hoped for a reconciliation” despite the player’s mistake. A human message, perhaps, but one that made Walid Acherchour, an After Foot pundit on RMC, hit the roof.

“The Young and the Restless, OM edition”

With irony, Acherchour summed it up: “You’d think we were in The Young and the Restless, in The Angels reality show, or in The Marseillais on W9. I don’t understand anything anymore.” For him, De Zerbi made a mistake by speaking out like this publicly, without even informing Mehdi Benatia or Pablo Longoria. “He says he hasn’t talked to the management about it yet… but how is that possible?”

Youngsters stepping up, a coach muddying the message

Acherchour points out the week had actually ended well on the pitch: a 5–2 win, impressive cameos from Nadir and Vaz, proof that the youngsters can turn the tables on the senior players. But instead of calming things down, De Zerbi lights the fuse again: “You could have handled this internally, behind closed doors. Now you’re putting another coin in the jukebox, putting the soap opera back on repeat.”

Inconsistency and muddled communication

The pundit mainly points out the inconsistency: only the day before, De Zerbi had taken a hard line against Véronique Rabiot, saying he wouldn’t “prostitute himself for a player.” Twenty-four hours later, he opens the door to Adrien. “It’s surreal. All week the management has been hammering home that the institution must be respected, and now one of the three power brokers is playing his own game.”

Risks to the club’s unity

Acherchour warns: if Rabiot is not reinstated, De Zerbi can be accused of undermining his own management; if he is brought back, OM will lose all coherence after such a hardline stance. “How do you explain that to the supporters? How do Longoria and Benatia manage things after that?” To him, this kind of emotion-driven reaction weakens Marseille’s project.

Too much emotion, not enough management

Walid Acherchour’s verdict is clear-cut: OM needs clarity, not a never-ending soap opera. “Honestly, you can’t manage like this. You can’t build a solid club on hot-headed reactions.”

So, folks, what do we think?

Walid Acherchour sees De Zerbi’s words as a ticking time bomb: an outstretched hand to Rabiot but an open disagreement with Longoria and Benatia, at the risk of cracking the club’s unity. Was De Zerbi right to speak from the heart, even if it muddles the shared strategy? Or, on the contrary, should this debate have stayed behind closed doors? You be the judge — drop your thoughts in the comments, we want to know if you’re saying “well done, coach” or “professional misconduct”!