Estranged from professional sport fields since his botched transfer to Roma this summer, Adrien Rabiot decided to tell all in an interview with Canal Football Club yesterday evening. In it, the 19 year-old midfielder refutes the notion of a rift with his manager to explain his absence so far this season.
“I really am injured and have been for the past 8 weeks…it’s largely healed up but there’s still some pain when I kick the ball. It’ll be a while until it’s 100%.”
Rabiot, who claims to have a good working relationship with Laurent Blanc (even if he is a little “fickle”), is evasive when asked whether he will wear the PSG colours again.
“It isn’t my choice to say ‘no, I’m playing with the reserves.’”, he sighs. “If they tell me ‘you’re starting against Lens’, I’m not going to argue, there’s no problem with that.”
Since his return to training Rabiot has featured twice for the reserve side and once for the French under 20s. “If they want to punish me they are not going about it in the right way. Turning up for training and playing, even for the reserves, is a pleasure for me. In no way is that a punishment.”
The PSG no. 25 takes care to defend Veronique, his mother and agent, whom many consider to be the root cause of his current difficulties. “People don’t know what they’re talking about when they say that she might be weighing me down in my career. It’s easy to attack her because she’s a woman and in the world of football it’s not so easy for women. I chose her as an agent because I believe she’s the best person to guide me.”
Toward what?
“Well at the moment that’s on hold.” Continues Rabiot, who is out of contract next summer. Nothing is happening, we’ll see in the coming weeks and from January how it might pan out for me.”
B.M.
