Coventry City will try to unload Mathieu Manset when the transfer window opens next month.
It became clear that the 24-year-old Frenchman has no future at the club when Steven Pressley ignored him even after a combination of injury, suspension and ineligibility left him with no senior strikers available for the FA Cup trip to Hartlepool.
And now the Sky Blues boss has explained: “I can see why some people might question that decision – perhaps think that I was cutting off my nose to spite my face – because nobody understands better than me the need to get results in the here and now.
“But I also understand that this club has to change its culture and in order to do that I sometimes need to make what might seem to be harder short-term decisions if they will help our long-term development.
“Manny did well at the start but he couldn’t sustain that. He’s a player with terrific ability – that has never been in question – but the thing that I can’t live with is a player not buying into the work ethic that I really want to create at this football club.
“If you play as a pressing team and you have one player who doesn’t press like the rest then you get found out because it’s not about an individual, it’s a collective effort.
“There are standards that I expect from all the players at the club and if anybody can’t accept that and reach those standards that I strive for then, regardless of any other considerations, they’ll not be part of the group.
“Many people told me when I came here that there was a degree of comfort around the football club and if I want to change that then I have to stick to my standards. If I start to make allowances for certain players not to work within the structure then the others will pick up on that – it could have a knock-on effect, and I can’t permit that under any circumstances.”
Mathieu, who had spells with Hereford, Reading and Carlisle, signed in August after an extended pre-season trial but the explosive early-season form of front two Leon Clarke and Callum Wilson restricted him to nine substitute outing – the most memorable against Preston when his last-minute back-heel flick salvaged a 4-4 draw but the last against Leyton Orient in October.
He turned down the chance to join League Two outfits Bristol Rovers and Fleetwood when City tried to farm him out on loan and he has recently been given time off to return to France following the birth of his daughter.
