Roberto De Zerbi tore into Mason Greenwood's miserable performance after dragging him off against Paris Saint-Germain.
The former Manchester United striker started in Marseille’s latest clash with their fierce rivals but it did not go to plan. Marseille slumped to a humbling 3-0 defeat - Joao Neves and Bradley Barcola netting for the visitors, while Leanardo Balerdi also scored an own goal.
Marseille’s task was not helped by Amine Harit’s red card at the 20-minute mark. But it was Greenwood who bore the brunt of his manager’s fury after being one of two players replaced at the break.
Greenwood was replaced by former Norwich frontman and fellow summer signing Jonathan Rowe. And Marseille boss De Zerbi pulled no punches when assessing the 23-year-old's performance against PSG.
Explaining the striker’s half-time substitution, the former Brighton boss said: "Because I didn’t like the way he played. If we want to compete for the title we have to push in all matches. He’s a good guy but I expected a lot more from him this evening.”
French newspaper L'Equipe offered a similarly damning review of his display, giving him a 1/10 in their infamously tough player ratings: They said: "De Zerbi waited until half-time to take him off, and that was already too much, as his lack of involvement bordered on indecency.
"Without the ball, he loses interest in everything, like his little trot on the opening goal, and especially this catastrophic pass at the origin of the third goal. A fiasco."
De Zerbi’s scathing words on Greenwood’s performance paint a very different picture to his previous comments about the striker. The Italian was full of praise for him during his early weeks of the season.
Speaking at the time, he said: "He has to continue training like he is doing. Mason Greenwood is a serious boy, we are all satisfied with him as a player and as a person, for his behaviour. He has enormous room for improvement.”
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And even recently, De Zerbi praised the former United forward. He claimed that Greenwood could become a ‘total’ player ahead of the clash with PSG.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, De Zerbi said: "I expect even more from him. He's a different player from the others, he's really very good, but he can be even more complete, even more of a team man. He has to work on the phase without the ball, but he is young, he is humble, very available. He can become a total player."
Greenwood got off to a quick start following his United exit in the summer, but after scoring five times in his first three games, he has found the net just once since August.
Marseille currently sit third in the Ligue 1 standings, but after losing to their bitter rivals, are already trailing PSG by six points.
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