Olympique Lyonnais easily defeated Troyes (4-1) on Friday evening, at Groupama Stadium, during the 3rd day of Ligue 1. Here are our tops and our flops.
TOPS
Tetê launches the Lyon offensive
In a first period without real intensity, Lyon struggled to pick up the pace, preferring to play the management card without taking any risks or relying on Trojan’s weaknesses. Trapped in the equalizer, the return from the locker room was rather impressive with two goals in less than 5 minutes. First decisive passer for Tagliafico with a masterful volley (47th), the Brazilian Tetê then came to triple the lead (49th), before offering himself a double later in the match on a sequence as a soloist (75th ).
The cleanliness of the OL environment
Beyond the very good performance of the attacking sector, it was the whole Lyon collective system that shone tonight – after finally starting the engine. The middle block perfectly oiled OL’s game with in particular a clean and solid Lucas Paqueta, recording a successful pass rate of 86%. Slightly less than his teammate Corentin Tolisso and his 91%, which made a copy even more versatile. The young Johann Lepenant took longer to start his encounter, encountering some difficulties in clearing cleanly at the start of the match. Between the long openings for Lacazette and Tetê or the quick short passes between them to find the breach, the Lyon midfielder played with the rhythm of the game to find the multiple breaches in the Trojan defense.
FLOPS
Troyes’ defensive errors
The symbolic action of this meeting remains the error of Adil Rami from the first minutes of the meeting. In wanting to serve his goalkeeper Gauthier Gallon, the 2018 world champion measured his pass very badly, which ended at the feet of Alexandre Lacazette for the opener. This sequence almost repeated itself several times over the entirety of the meeting: the Trojan defensive sector never knew how to free themselves by taking care of their raises. The five defenders started by Bruno Irles lost a total of 39 balls in this match. The lack of communication, organization and serenity is glaring at the start of the season on the Estac side, which has conceded ten goals in three Ligue 1 days.
Irles sans inspiration
By aligning a 5-4-1, Bruno Irles has taken out the defensive bus card – more and more rare in Ligue 1 in recent years and above all less and less effective. The ESTAC coach wants to build a defensive team with a… bad defense. If there is one thing that Troyes cannot deploy at the start of the season, it is a solid defensive curtain. Here is a curious paradox. It is very difficult to express oneself in such a singular system which hinders all offensive ingredients for attackers such as Iké Ugbo or Mama Baldé. Too bad given the great breakthroughs of the Trojan right wing composed of former Parisians Wilson Odobert and Thierno Baldé.