End of series ! His return to the lawn of the Vélodrome stadium in Marseille – where the former international libero became the “president” at the end of the 1990s – did not bring Laurent Blanc luck. After two consecutive successes in the league, Olympique Lyonnais fell from a height on Sunday evening, beaten (1-0) by a header from Samuel Gigot (43rd).
If OM take the opportunity to stop the bleeding, avoid a revolution a few days after their elimination in the Champions League and find the four aces of Ligue 1, for OL this result is a serious blow. stop. The Lyonnais are in 8th place in the championship, far from their standards.
After the defeat, Laurent Blanc was not kind to his players. He criticizes them in particular for having taken 45 minutes before starting to play this Olympico of French football. To have been “mediocre” during the first act and to have multiplied the “bad choices”. “When you come here and you only play half-time, it’s difficult to come home with points, I told the players, thundered the coach at a press conference. In the first half, in the use of the ball, we were mediocre, far too mediocre. When we recovered the ball, we only made bad choices, for example, on a three against one after a corner for them. We made the wrong choices at the wrong times. We collected the balls and gave them back within thirty seconds. »
Nothing suited the coach, neither offensively nor defensively. “There are players who underperformed in the first period, continues Blanc. We didn’t defend badly, some players did the job, but offensively, we were too rough. It wasn’t easy, okay, I didn’t see many teams offering play here in the first forty-five minutes, even Lens suffered, were cornered and suffered a lot of chances, probably more that we. In the second half, we knew that we would have a slightly more tired Marseille team, with more space, but we still had to be better with the ball… ”
The speech, which we imagine muscular, at the break and the double return of Reine-Adélaïde for Aouar and Toko Ekambi for Dembélé had the merit of reviving his troops. Without allowing Lyon to come back to score. “In the second half, the game was choppy, Marseille didn’t offer a lot of play, they defended well. By being more serious with the ball, sincerely, a point, you could take it without problem. In the second half, we had control, without being immune to a counter (…). It was better. But we will have to be better, especially with the ball. By being a little better with the ball, we could have taken at least one point. Marseille gave us space, we could have taken advantage of it better. Physically we are better. But Marseille is a very physical team, with a total game. »
Before the long international break due to the World Cup in Qatar, Lyon has one last meeting to negotiate as best as possible with the reception of Nice on Friday.