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Paul Onuachu’s Trabzonspor manager, Fatih Tekke, has had his “emotional” resignation rejected by the club, following the side’s elimination from the Europa League on Thursday night.
The Super Lig outfit, who count Onuachu among their attacking options, suffered a heavy 4-0 defeat away to Ferencvaros in Hungary, going down 5-0 on aggregate in the play-off round.
In the immediate aftermath of the loss, Tekke, the man who led Trabzonspor to a third-place league finish last season offered his resignation to the club’s board.
However, Trabzonspor moved quickly to reject it. In a statement on Friday morning, the club said the 48-year-old’s decision had been driven by the “intense emotional impact” of the European exit, rather than a considered assessment of his position.
With the Europa League dream over, Onuachu and his teammates will now have to refocus their European ambitions on the Europa Conference League this season.
The setback comes despite a busy and ambitious summer in the transfer market for the seven-time Turkish champions, who brought in Premier League winners Mohamed Salah and Fabinho, while also welcoming Andre Onana back on loan from Manchester United.
Salah’s arrival in particular raised eyebrows, with the 34-year-old making the surprise call to join Trabzonspor last month after mutually terminating his Liverpool contract. He remains the Reds’ third-highest all-time scorer, with 257 goals in 442 appearances since arriving from Roma in 2017, and marked his Trabzonspor debut with two goals in last Saturday’s 2-1 win over Istanbul Basaksehir.
For now, though, attention turns back to Tekke, who with the board’s backing restored and will be tasked with steadying the ship alongside Onuachu and the rest of the squad as they regroup for the Conference League campaign ahead.
