On the same day as the press conference to introduce Maxime Dupé, Gym's sporting director Florent Ghisolfi took the opportunity to sum up Nice's winter transfer window.

MAXIME DUPÉ AND THE GOALKEEPER HIERARCHY

"What convinced us to go for Maxime Dupé were all his qualities, both footballing and personal. He's proved that he's a very good Ligue 1 goalkeeper. He's someone I've been following for a while. There was an opportunity for us at the winter transfer window when we needed to replace Salvatore (Sirigu). It was a no-brainer for us. It's a long-term transfer, which was important both for us and for Maxime, who wanted to be here for the long term."

"As I said at the last press conference, if we hadn't brought in Maxime, we wouldn't have brought in another goalkeeper, both because Maxime represents everything we were looking for and also because Teddy Boulhendi is improving rapidly and we would have been confident with him. But today, a great club has to have a pool of great goalkeepers, and we have three who are performing very well. We can also count on Bartosz Zelazowski, a very interesting young keeper too. We're very satisfied with our pool of goalkeepers. Humility is something I like about our four goalkeepers."

THE WINTER TRANSFER WINDOW ROUND-UP 

"We're very satisfied. I'd like to say a big well done to all the teams, including the recruitment team, the communications department, the legal department and the finance department. Everyone worked together very smoothly, and we're also making positive progress behind the scenes. We've worked well hand in hand with Fabrice (Bocquet), with Jean-Pierre (Rivère) and with our board above us. That's the first satisfying thing.”

“The timing of the transfer window was right, and we weren't under any pressure. We fulfilled our three priorities, the three positions we wanted to strengthen. We've ticked quite a few boxes in terms of the Ligue 1 experience for the three players (Mohamed-Ali Cho, Valentin Rosier and Maxime Dupé) who are joining us. All three players speak French and English, which is important in our group because the staff speak a lot of English. There's experience, maturity, youth and a bit of madness in Mohamed-Ali Cho. Overall, we're very satisfied.”

THE ARRIVAL OF VICTOR ORAKPO

"Victor is an academy recruit. He's going to start with the reserve-elite team. He's an 18-year-old Nigerian striker. He's a very well-rounded lad who has a lot of qualities, size, speed, and is good at playing with his back to goal. He's only 18, so there's plenty of room for improvement."

“We're going to work with him. He's not expected to be in the professional squad for the time being, but why not become one. As part of our policy, we want to sign two or three players with this profile every season. This season, we've done that with Amidou Doumbouya and Victor (Orakpo), who were both born in 2006."

"This allows us to fill positions where the training and academy aren’t producing players with 'top potential'. Ideally, in our squad construction, the third player in the position will always be a player developed or brought into the club’s academy. I'd like to say a few words to all those who worked on this arrival, because he came on trial last summer with Didier (Digard) in the elite group. It's also a job well-done in conjunction with Sébastien Squillaci, who has taken on more responsibility for post-training recruitment. The whole organisation is being put in place and this recruitment is the result."

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