Hey big spender: Can Rennes deliver after busy summer? | OneFootball

Stade Rennais may have sold Eduardo Camavinga on deadline day but the Brittany side still managed to come out of the summer looking considerably stronger after investing big in the transfer window.

All the focus was on Paris Saint-Germain with their signing of Lionel Messi and a host of other megastars, but much of the capital club’s business was free transfers. If you don’t count the previously agreed fee spent to make Danilo Pereira’s loan move into a permanent deal, then PSG were not even the biggest spenders in the summer among Ligue 1 Uber Eats clubs. That distinction goes to Rennes.

Clubs rarely specify transfer fees but the Brittany side are understood to have spent about €80 million on new signings in the transfer window, with billionaire owner François Pinault reaching into his deep pockets to help them bring in seven new faces.

Rennes did recoup over half that amount in sales, largely thanks to Camavinga joining Real Madrid for €31 million just before the window closed, but even without the teenage France international midfielder Bruno Genesio’s squad appears stronger than last season when they finished sixth to qualify for the inaugural UEFA Europa Conference League.

The new faces

Their attack has been strengthened with the arrival of Ghanaian prospect Kamaldeen Sulemana (pictured below) from Danish side Nordsjaelland and Gaëtan Laborde - scorer of 16 league goals last season for Montpellier - for €15 million each.

The midfield was boosted as Croatian international Lovro Majer arrived from Dinamo Zagreb for €12 million and former Angers SCO star Baptiste Santamaria returned to France from SC Freiburg for €14 million.

Meanwhile close to €20 million was spent to sign promising centre-back Loïc Badé from RC Lens and Norwegian international left-back Birger Meling joined from Nîmes Olympique for a more modest fee of about €3 million.

Given the players the Bretons already had at their disposal, including Belgium winger Jérémy Doku (pictured below), this is now a squad built to compete for Champions League qualification. They had a first taste of Europe’s elite club competition last year but that ended in disappointment with just one point and fans almost completely denied the chance to see their team live because of the pandemic. Now they want to get back there.

A space to be taken?

In the current Ligue 1 landscape, with reigning champions LOSC Lille looking unlikely to come close to last season’s form and both Olympique Lyonnais and AS Monaco enduring difficult starts, there could well be a podium place up for grabs. However, Rennes have had a slow start to the campaign themselves, with just a single derby win over FC Nantes in their first five outings. Their last two league games have ended in disappointing 2-0 defeats at the hands of both Angers and Stade de Reims. Coach Genesio appears unable to settle on a preferred system, between a 4-4-2, a 4-2-3-1 and a 4-3-3.

After the defeat against Reims last weekend, the headlines talked of Rennes already being in crisis. But the response against Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa Conference League on Thursday was stirring, even if they had to settle for a point in a 2-2 draw.

“Everyone was frustrated and disappointed after Sunday but we have a good squad and we showed that tonight,” Laborde said after getting his first goal for his new club against Spurs.

The versatile 27-year-old, who says he is happy playing anywhere across the attack, could have been in the Premier League by now. There was interest in him from England, but his decision to come to Rennes confirms their new-found status. Yet his place in the team cannot be guaranteed with the likes of Martin Terrier and Doku waiting in the wings.

Genesio: Patience required

Rennes once relied on forming their own young players, like Camavinga and Ousmane Dembélé. They can still do that, and 17-year-old midfielder Lesley Ugochukwu is the next one to keep a close eye on. However, they are now first and foremost a buying club. Players want to come to Roazhon Park and the pressure is on Genesio to create a winning team to match the ambitions of the owner.

“We are still a very young team,” Genesio said this week. “Kamaldeen Sulemana for example is just 19. He needs to adapt to a new league and a new way of working, so we need to be patient.”

An acid test comes this weekend when Rennes head to the Orange Vélodrome to play in-form Olympique de Marseille, the team that pipped them to fifth last season and Europa League qualification.

“There have been good bits in our games at the start of this season but sometimes we just need players to take more of a risk and take the initiative,” added Genesio, the former Lyon coach who succeeded Julien Stéphan in March.

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