Olympique de Marseille drew 1-1 with Nice on Sunday, and coach Habib Beye left the Stade Vélodrome with visible frustration after a lost ball by Himad Abdelli led to the penalty conceded by Tadjidine Mmadi — an anger that Abdelli answered, bluntly, "T'es pas mon père."
The match finished 1-1 after a late Marseille comeback, but the scoreline masked a dressing-room flashpoint. Mason Greenwood, who arrived at the club in July 2024 and entered the game in the 63e minute, was brought on amid questions about fitness and attitude; Greenwood told staff he "only had thirty minutes in his legs." Ethan Nwaneri, the young midfielder loaned by Arsenal in the winter to develop under Roberto De Zerbi, was left on the bench despite having already played thirty minutes at Lorient earlier in the campaign.
An unnamed club source described the wider backdrop, saying, "Mason a toujours eu un traitement différent depuis son arrivée (en juillet 2024), il a toujours été très privilégié." That perception has hardened inside the squad after incidents in recent weeks: the week before the match Greenwood arrived late to a team meal and allegedly answered sharply to Beye's remarks, and his minutes have been managed carefully since a leg knock on March 22 followed by a return on April 10.
Context matters here: Beye had publicly targeted a player in his pre-match press conference without naming him, and on Sunday his frustration was pinned by staff and players on Abdelli after the error that led to Nice's spot-kick. Abdelli has already been singled out for nonchalance at Lorient and more generally since his winter transfer, and the club is still smarting from a 0-2 defeat at Lorient on April 18 that prompted former captain Medhi Benatia to criticize the squad sharply.
The tension is not a tidy, single-issue row. Beye’s handling of Abdelli — direct and public after the Nice match — sits uneasily alongside the special treatment some players receive, and it clashes with the manager’s earlier public doubts about other squad members. Ethan Nwaneri was specifically brought to Marseille on loan to gain minutes and experience, yet he was left on the bench against Nice; that selection reinforces a sense among some players that discipline is inconsistently applied. Greenwood’s limited minutes, the late arrival at a team meal and his curt exchanges with staff complicate the idea that privilege equals impunity.
Those contradictions have already produced friction. Abdelli's on-field reply to the coach is unusually blunt for a player at this stage of a season, and Greenwood’s guarded claim about having only thirty minutes in his legs came in a match when the club needed fresh impetus. The squad also carries the baggage of the April 18 loss to Lorient and the public rebuke that followed; the combination of public criticism, internal complaints about favoritism, and the presence of loaned talents expected to develop under De Zerbi is creating a volatile mix.
Beye now faces a straightforward managerial test: reconcile a need for discipline with the reality that some players are treated differently inside the club, and decide which approach will produce results. If he continues to single out Abdelli while allowing perceived privilege to persist, the tensions that surfaced after Sunday’s 1-1 draw are likely to deepen; if he tightens standards across the squad — including with high-profile figures like Greenwood — the dressing room could stabilise. For readers tracking the fallout, earlier reporting on Beye's public questions about Nwaneri's commitment is available at
