MONACO vs. LYON

By: John | December 20th, 2009

stadelouisII
Stade Louis II.
Week 18 – Sunday, December 20, 2009
Stade Louis II, Monaco
3p.m. (21:00 CET, 20:00 GMT)

titanic
Should’ve photoshoped Puel’s head on the captain’s body…

Well, looks like that captain of the ship has gotten a stay of execution and may not have to walk the plank after all. After struggling for a half and some change of football to overtake the laughing stock of L1 defenses, Boulogne, things may be looking-up for an OL squad that has been running a neck-and-neck race to the bottom of the table with two other clubs, and also, attain the honor of being worst performers in the league as of late. But after a week of OL fans calling for Claude Puel’s head, on the internet, in the press, as well as jeering him and the players at the stadium, this limp dog of a Lyon squad may have been thrown a proverbial bone in the form of a back-to-back set of matches against a pair of the most horrid performers in L1 as of late; altough as luck would have it, we end the first half of the season with a trip to Montpellier.

And so it is that OL head to the southern shores of the French Med to take-on a struggling- which may be to soft of a euphamism- AS Monaco.

Monaco’s Form: ASMF, along with St. Etienne, have been the other sinking ship of L1. They were riding a seemingly unstoppable avalanche that has dragged them all the way from second place to their current, momentary perch at the lower half of the table, though they did manage to stop the bleeding with a win at Rennes last week.

During their surreal slide into oblivian, Monaco have gone an “impressive” 1-5. Before their win agaist Rennes last week, they had endured five straight losses- should make you feel somewhat better if you’re an OL fan.

Les Rouge et Blanc sit 11th in the table with and 8-1-7 record and (25) points. At home they are pretty strong: 9th with a 5-1-2 record and (16) points. They are 11th in attack with (18) scored- more than half the goals coming from one man- and 10th in defense with (20) allowed.

Monaco are in deep crap, and most of the reason why has to do with their offense. The offense has struggled in their last six matches: ASMF has averaged less than a goal a match in that span. Their offense is dominated by the Brazilian midfielder/winger Nene, and has become totally relient upon the Brazilian who’s led L1 most of- if not all of- the season in scoring. He has scored a blistering ten of eighteen of the squad’s total goals, in fourteen starts.

Indeed, you can see the direct correlation between Nene and victory, in that aside from a score on a penalty kick, Monaco’s losing streak began the match after their last victory, which was incidentaly, the last time Nene scored from open play. In short, when Nene scores- he has only failed to score in one of their eight victories- Monaco usually win, and when he doesn’t, well you get the picture.

Their strikers, aside from Chu Young PARK who has put four in the back of the net this season, are not contributing very much- Gudjohnsen, I’m looking at you mainly.

History: Lyon are 10-8-28 all time vs. Monaco. Last year, we won the first and drew the second meeting. You have to go back four seasons for the last Monaco victory, May of ‘07.

Injuries: Cleber, Bodmer, Clerc, and Ederson. TOULALAN IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Le groupe lyonnais : Lloris, Vercoutre, Boumsong, Cris, Réveillère, Gassama, Cissokho, Abenzoar, Gonalons, Makoun, Källström, Toulalan, Grenier, Pjanic, Bastos, Delgado, Govou, Gomis, Tafer, Lisandro.

Lloris
Reveillere-Cris-Boumsong-Cissokho
Toulalan-Makoun
Bastos-Pjanic-Govou
Lisandro