shox: "I wanted to remove NBK, apEX"

Earlier this month, the French team shocked the scene by moving in-game leader Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon to the bench and signing former OpTic member Oscar "⁠mixwell⁠" Cañellas on trial, with the leadership reins being handed to Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt.

At the time, G2 stated that the players had "different visions" on how to improve the team, with shox defending "drastic changes" in a bid to turn things around after a run of poor form - changes that not everyone agreed with.

shox wanted to reunite with SmithZz

In a podcast on G2's Twitch channel, shox revealed that he wanted to remove NBK- and Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire from the lineup to play again with former teammates Kévin "⁠Ex6TenZ⁠" Droolans and Edouard "⁠SmithZz⁠" Dubourdeaux, the latter of whom stepped down as G2 coach to play competitively again.

The 25-year-old added that he had Kenny "⁠kennyS⁠" Schrub's support for this line-up but Alexandre "⁠bodyy⁠" Pianaro rejected the changes as he "did not trust the project."

"We definitely needed drastic changes," he stated. "kennyS and bodyy are the kind of players who will just follow, who will not cause problems if things are working or not.

"I would have added Ex6TenZ as a team captain and SmithZz as a main rifler, not as an AWPer.

"That was my option. Ex6TenZ was 100% okay with it, SmithZz was also in, kennyS was okay with it, but bodyy did not want to make these changes. He just did not trust this project at all."

shox went on to admit that the team had many issues, both inside and outside the game, and accepted his share of the blame for the squad's lack of success.

"I tried to change positions and roles when I believed we were not approaching things the right way," he noted. "Perhaps sometimes I tried to change things too much and the players were kind of lost. Maybe I did not speak enough to them to make sure they were on my side.

"I am not pointing fingers. In my opinion, the team did not fit together, so it was not like changing one player would make things better.

"I believe we did not have the same vision for the game, we were maybe too different outside the game, we did not have great chemistry, balance inside the game or communication. There were a lot of things."

shox will undergo surgery on his right wrist on Friday as he hopes to fix a persistent problem that has forced him to play through the pain barrier for several months now.