Rennes finished third last season to earn a first tilt at Champions League football but have won only one of their last eight Ligue 1 Uber Eats games and have slid down the table from top to eighth.

Stéphan said: "We are in an extremely negative spiral. We have the obligation to immediately reconsider our objectives. We need to be lucid and say to ourselves that we need to have the attitude of a team that will be involved in a fight to stay in the division. At this point in time we're not showing the face of a team that has a chance of qualifying for Europe.

"If I'm the problem then that's not a problem"

"It's not so much the standings, it's what's going on on the pitch. We weren't prepared mentally to live through what we're living through. If I'm the problem then that's not a problem. We're sufficiently sincere with each other inside the club in order to take the decisions that have to be taken… We'll talk about that when the time is right."