CL : Lyon vs Ajax – Giving the tone for the whole season

By: Megame | November 22nd, 2011

Bad luck. Just about to start the biggest game of this fall, and possibly of this season, Olympique Lyonnais is in disarray. After a promising start to the season, both in the game and in the mindset, OL is so far in a series of three defeats, regardless of the competition. Rémi Garde’s men are ineffective upfront and fragile behind. The visit of Ajax could be seen as an opportunity to make them regain some confidence, but at the moment supporters and observers alike wonder how this team, who -like their defense- are in trouble (6 goals conceded in 3 games), can raise their head and come out as winners of this all-important encounter.

LyonAjax

All-important? You bet. A defeat versus Ajax on the Gerland pitch, and Lyon would be eliminated from the competition. A draw, and Lyon and would no longer have their destiny in their hands: all would depend on the last pool games in two weeks. After 12 years of uninterrupted participation, nobody can imagine Lyon not playing the Champions League this season, so one can only guess the sort of pressure the players and Rémi Garde have on their shoulders…

Small consolation perhaps: for once, Olympique Lyonnais may not have the most crowded infirmary before a game this season. To face Ajax, the Lyon club should get some players back, like Lisandro, Ederson, Bastos and Gourcuff who all were still recently injured. Unfortunately, given tje importance he has gained in the midfield, it seems Maxime Gonalons will be sitting in Gerland stands, not having fully recovered yet from his calf injury incurred against Belgium with Les Bleus. The other bad news is that Lisandro may again feel a small contraction in the thigh after the match against Rennes. So the Argentine striker may be diminished. Two pieces of information which, if confirmed, would not lead Olympique Lyonnais to overconfidence …

On the Dutch club side, however, all sectors are also impacted by injuries, as Frank De Boer will be without striker Kolbeinn Sigthorsson, without his attacking midfielder Siem de Jong, his Russian international Dmitry Bulykin and without winger Derk Boerrigter. The absence of these four players, regularly used by the Amsterdam club, will not allow Ajax to make the trip in the best conditions, even if a draw would probably largely suffice to their happiness. At last, a bit of fairness…

The teams:
Lyon : Lloris – Reveillère, Cris, Lovren, Cissokho – Kallstrom, Gourcuff – Briand, Lisandro, Bastos – Gomis

Ajax : Vermeer – Van der Wiel, Verthonghen, Anita, Alderweireld – Enoh, Eriksen, Janssen, Lodeiro – Sulejmani, Ebecilio

Allez l’OL, on compte sur vous!

Some Related Lyon Posts:

Category: Team News and Rumors

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Luke99

The El Classico game between Real Madrid and Barcelona is 3 days after the Ajax game so i guess we all know what that means surely its looking like Eroupa league for Lyon this year
Luke99

Briand and Gomis messed up big time today they both seem to hold the ball for to long. For some reason Briand has always been like this im pretty sure Belfodil and Grenier have more of an impact than him. Ederson on the other hand is better than Gourcuff and Briand but he doesn't like to defend it clearly showed we were lacking a player with dribbling skills until ederson came on and for those of you saying bastos should be sold that is to much of a loss anyways the situation is looking like Eroupa league at the moment although i doubt Lyon could win it judging by how did against Ajax in both legs it would be interesting seeing them play there for half a season and if Remi Garde really wants Round of 16 well hes going to have to go all out attack against Zagreb which means No Briand and probably even 1 defensive Mid so ederson grenier and gourcuff can all play
Theobald

The way Lyon is playing this season it would be hard to score 4 goals against an amateur club. No need to talk about Zagreb. EL is the reality with the lousy squad we have.
muffin

You forget (or haven't watched) that we played good football until last couple of weeks. Then the squad wasn't lousy? Where did that talent go suddenly?
The team is in a crisis for about a month now, we should be thinking what made this squad suddenly play bad in this period and not vilifying it, saying it's "lousy" and demand selling of more than half of our squad.
Theobald

I can't remember one really good game from this team. Help me.
We got one of the easiest groups in this years CL and still are not good enough to go in the next round. Marseille and Lille are both in harder groups but are near the second round.
The fact is that players like Gomis, Briand, Gourcuff, Cris... are not good enough to be in a CL club. I'm sure we would have about the same results if we would play with the young talents like Faure, Kolo, Belfodil, Grenier... Get them out!
muffin

Every game we won was a good game, except maybe vs MHSC, and plus Ajaccio. Either you're blind or just bitching cos this team didn't meet you expectations of winning CL or whatever this season. We were on top of L1 for weeks and looked to be set to go past the CL group stages, despite of all the injuries we've had this season (almost sure we had the most number of them of any L1 club this season).
And yeah, we're not gonna be in top 10 of L1 playing with Faure, Kolo, Belfodil...Gourcuff's best game this season was 3x better than any Grenier's game for Lyon.
Gomis looked a dynamite in the beginning of the season. Briand stringed 4-5 good matches before the international truce. The goal is to get them back to this state, not sell 20 players and play with 18 year olds.
And yeah right, Olympiakos, Trabzonspor, CSKA, struggling Inter and Arsenal...Real Madrid is no match for them, you're right.
Theobald

No. Most games we won were with one goal diference. We couldn't dominate games against bottom sides and always had to go in the dramatic ends.
If Gomis and Briand would be good they would be called by Blanc at least for some friendly games. We saw how good they are without Bastos and Lisandro. You can't teach 25-6 year old players how to play football. They are not better then what you have seen in the last weeks. Everyone can have one or two good games but good players play at high level constantly.
And why are you comparing Real to Arsenal and Inter? There are 3 other teams in each group and we were never going for the first place anyway. Olympiacos and Dortmund or CSKA and Trabzon are stronger teams then Ajax and Dinamo.
muffin

Jesus, where do you come up with this stuff? Cos it's mostly not true. 3-1 against Nice, Bordeaux, Kazan, Nancy...2-0 against OM, DinamoZ, and ASSE. Those are all games we dominated. And 3 other games we won with only 1 goal difference.
And basically you're saying Gomis is playing equally now and 2 months ago when we had like 9 goals in same number of games. Sorry, but no. Bastos and Licha are our best players, how can the team not be affected by their absence? We're not Real Madrid or ManCity.
Russ

We gotta face the facts. We are no longer the same Lyonnais side of
years past. We are an Europa League-quality side at best. Fortunately we
still do have hope in the players we have in our youth set-up, so I
think it's time that we give them a shot. If it means taking a licking
the next couple of seasons then I am completely fine with that. Players
like Gourcuff and Bafe must make way, Cris needs to retire, ederson,
briand were major disappointments, etc. We might as well cash in on
Bastos as well, and this is not a criticism of Michel. Give him his
move, grab the cash, and let the youth revolution begin. We gotta weed
out the big money busts.
sdzsdz

i think the best move to do is selling cissokho and briand this season. giving room to dabo and lacaszette/pied to shine and clearing up some cash space.
we really need the likes of bastos though, and as much as i hate gomis right now, selling him this season would screw us as well, unless we buy someone instead of him.
i dont know... im just depressed. we're not getting any better at all as seasons go by, only worse and worse. at least with puel we did well in champs league :-(
Russ

no i hear you. Bastos has been our outfield player of the season, and Gomis has scored goals for us in the league, BUT if we want to reach the heights of years past we gotta get rid of the players in our current situation that we brought in to continue that excellence, because they have all not been good enough. If that means mid table finishes for the next couple of years then fine. We gotta rebuild, thats all im saying.
sdzsdz

all we have to do now is hope ajax loses to madrid and we beat zagreb by +7 goals, but knowing our team we'll just play for the draw against zagreb.
Megame

Well, not quite: if Madrid beat Ajax like 4-0 (they can do it), we "only" have to win 3-0 to be back...
Nikhil Apte

Madrid 6-0 Ajax would be just right. :)
sdzsdz

that would take a miracle though. madrid's A side in Bernabéu beat ajax 3-0.
now its gonna be their B side in amsterdam.
it should've never came to this..
Megame

Why, oh why haven't Lyon played like that earlier?
Russ

the real question is: How bad is Yoann Gourcuff????
Megame

Arguably Gourcuff, even at his current level, was more useful than Licha today.
Russ

yea well at least licha has an excuse of just coming back from injury but seriously...what on earth has Yoann accomplished with this club??? i just can't defend his performances anymore. Hes not even 1/5th of the player he was at Bordeaux. He's the big money signing he has the talent and hes gotta produce. He just isn't getting it done, and hes ran out of time in my opinion.
muffin

Actually Gourcuff was quite good on AM for a player who was absent for 6 months. The real question is why was he on DM again? That was a completely wrong move by Garde again, although even at his unfamiliar position Gourcuff was useful throughout this game.
Russ

I agree, playing Gourcuff as a DM when we desperately lack that link player between the mids and the forwards is a mistake. However, that's where my defense of Gourcuff ends. I'll keep it simple with statistics. 40 Appearances, 5 Goals, 5 Assists. 22-26 mil euros? Give me a break.
muffin

Last season, there was no excuse for Gourcuff for playing that badly. However after an unfortunate 6 months absence, he came back stronger than last season. The difference is clearly visible; he started creating at least 4-5 chances per game for us this season and also put himself in good scoring positions. Definitely still not at his best, but he's showing promise, in my book. But it's no use if he continues on DM.
Russ

Don't get me wrong muffin, its not like i dont want yoann to succeed. hopefully he stays healthy, finds form, plays in the hole behind licha, and finds his best football again. There is nothing more that I want than to eat my own words on him. I just feel like his window of opportunity has run its course.
Megame

Their keeper saved them again from a Lacazette goal.
Megame

Ederson should have won a penalty
Megame

Lacazette on for Briand
sdzsdz

why is gourcuff still playing...?
Megame

OL had 62% possession in the last 15 mlns
Megame

Bastos,almost.
Shahab_dabiran

took us 80 minutes to wake up...
Megame

Ederson missed two attempts.Third time lucky?
Megame

Ederson on for Licha, fairly transparent today
sdzsdz

we are playing absolutely awfully. gourcuff and gomis need to leave immediately.
Megame

Ajax are getting closer and closer to scoring...OL badly need to improve collectively...
Megame

0-0 half time. Lively and open game, but frustrating for a Lyon supporter, as despite having possibly more opportunities than Ajax, Lyon are too slow, too predictable, and too imprecise in front of the goal.
Ajax seem in control, are technically superior, but their finishing is poor. They're all so young, looking at their bench seems like a junior gallery.
sidney govou

if continue like this ... GOODBY CL
Megame

Can you recommend a few streams?
Megame

I'm fortunate to be able towatch it on TV, so I don't have to find streams. Can anyone give some links?
sdzsdz

can anyone please send me a link. all my links died. please!
Stevemck47

Looking for a link too. How is Cris doing? Interesting that this is the only CL game that still has no goals.
sdzsdz

gomis and gourcuff need to step it up. they're constantly losing the ball
muffin

Gourcuff isn't a DM, and yet Garde is playing him there despite of the fact he's doing a good offensive job when he gets the chance. For the 2nd consecutive game it's obvious Gourcuff is just not a defensive player. Subbing Gomis for Fofana would do the trick.
sdzsdz

guys please, i cant find a link! help me out!