Do you want know what Steve Mandanda was doing yesterday? Of course you do, so luckily L’Equipe have reported it in oddly detailed and expressive form.

‘Steve Mandanda was sweating on the muscle-building machines of a sports hall in Marseille’ explain L’Equipe. His ‘burly’ surroundings were ‘appreciative’, and Mandanda was working on his abs, whilst ‘competing with a practitioner of MMA’.

The French newspaper go on to say the goalkeeper has asked Frank De Boer to help with his Crystal Palace exit, and has also emptied his locker at the Premier League club.

Figures on a supposed transfer to Marseille have once again changed, with it now being stated the French club have offered €1.5m, and Crystal Palace want three times that ‘and sometimes evoke provocation by asking for the amazing sum of €8m’.

At the beginning of all of this it was possible to have sympathy with Mandanda, and even Marseille, but the longer it goes on the worse the French end of this particular deal looks.