Tigana is being sued for damages by Fulham, who claim he led them to spend more than £7m on unnecessary transferrelated activity. The Frenchman is countersuing for £2.1m in share options he says he is owed.
The court arguments centre on the details of the transfers of £11.5m flop Steve Marlet and Edwin van der Sar for £7m, plus the aborted deal for John Carew.
Tigana today surprisingly claimed that Marlet, who was bought in August 2001 from Lyon, was a bargain.
He said: "If we did not have Marlet that year I am sure the club would have gone down. He scored many important goals. I think he was cheap."
Tigana says he was accused by Mohamed Fayed of siphoning off transfer funds and that the chairman offered two agents around £70,000 to accuse him of taking a cut of the Marlet deal.
The former manager, watched by his friend Gerard Houllier, a fellow witness, and Bill Muddyman, a former Fulham director, said: "Always they talk about Marlet, Marlet, Marlet but nobody talks about Louis Saha or what I built."
He added: "At Fulham I put my personal problems with the chairman away. Always I protected the club. Never I say a bad word until now."
