Marseille failed with late bid for Cana

French giants Marseille were unsuccessful in their attempts to sign former player Lorik Cana, 20 Minutes newspaper has revealed.

The Albanian defender became available for sale in the final days of the summer transfer window having struggled for playing time at Lazio.

And just as he agreed to join Nantes, Cana was the subject of an assault from former club Marseille.

Having failed to seriously reinforce the back line in the summer transfer window, OM were desperate to lure the Albania captain back to Stade Velodrome.

Marseille chairman Vincent Labrune even asked his Nantes counterpart to pull out of the deal and offered a player in exchange, but the Canaries did not want to pass up the opportunity to sign the experienced defender on a cut-price deal.

Lorik Cana, 32, had spent four years at Lazio having joined from Galatasaray, making 82 Serie A appearances and scoring 4 goals in the process.