Let the new season begin!

By: Megame | August 6th, 2011

Worried. Rarely have Lyon supporters felt so worried before the start of the championship. Worried that, for the first time in over ten years, their club might not be on the podium come the last game of the season. Indeed, Ligue 1 observers now seem to predominantly place Lyon in the outsiders category, with Paris, Marseille and Lille being the favourites for the podium. Because of our much publicised absence of recruitment this year, and because of our new and inexperienced coach, we are now versed into a sort of “upper second tier”, with Bordeaux and Rennes, for instance.

Whilst it is understandable that, in times of financial austerity, the media insist on the big names being signed thanks to Quatari millions, this is distorting people’s perception of the L1 market and making it feel like every French club but Lyon are lining up new players like pearls on a necklace. So let’s forget the perception, and see were exactly we stand.

Changes to the team and staff

Waiting for one or two actual players who will have missed the preseason, OL started their physical training with a couple of cycling ghosts as placeholders. That’s clever.

In: Duverne (fitness coach), Baticle (assistant coach), Abenzoar (return from loan to Arles-Avignon), Mensah (return from loan to Sunderland), Seguin (return from loan to Dijon), Tafer (return from loan to Toulouse)
Out: C. Puel and his deputy Collot, Delgado (Monterrey), Diakhaté (return to Kiev), Toulalan (Malaga), N’Diaye (Arles-Avignon), Hartock (no club), Defourny (lent to Antwerp), Roux (CA Bastia)

The transfer period isn’t over yet, and Lyon intend to look for opportunities until the very last days. The club announced they were looking for a CB and a DM, but that they had to sell a player first before that. The CB might be secondary now that we have Mensah, but the lack of DM is burning. So there are hot discussions at the moment about Ndinga, but greedy Auxerre president Bourgoin has a higher valuation than our very own Jean-Michel Aulas, so even if the club and the player already found an agreement the deal may well never happen. An alternative could be Inter Milan’s Mariga or Nancy’s Diakité. Yet, with the CL draw that just happened (see below), the club feels the urgency to have a proper defensive midfielder, and that may well lead Aulas to up his initial offer to make this an offer Auxerre won’t refuse. Because whilst the current team probably has the potential to remain competitive in L1, it seems difficult to compete at European level, right now at least, as the preparation games showed.

The preparation friendlies

One win, at last…

Having lost against Red Bull Salzbourg ( 1-0 ) then Genk ( 3-1 ), and having drawn two games in a row against Hanover ( 0-0 ) and Shakhtar Donetsk ( 1-1 ), Lyon thus were waiting for their last friendly match to glean their first victory of the pre-season, partially thanks to Lisandro Lopez’s early score opening (8th minute). Honesty commands to say that the first period was very complicated for the Lyonnais, dominated by an already impressive Porto team. But for their fifth preparation meeting, the Lyonnais managed to patiently wait for the storm to calm down, to finally make the difference at the end of match, after Cissokho suffered hell in front of Hulk and after Vercoutre saved the team on many occasions.
After the fast equalization of Ruben Micael (12th, 1-1), following a good work from the Brazilian Porto recruit Kleber, Bastos appeared near the end to exploit a Portuguese defensive blunder (81th, 1-2). The departure for Juve seems far away in his mind, as the Brazilian seemed very concerned and committed. Overall, it was a fairly lucky win, rather undeserved, but a good omen for Lyon who managed to resist the Portuguese armada and to score out of very few occasions.

So, what do we take out of these games

Moving to 4-4-2: As shown by Rémi Garde in the friendly matches, the Olympique Lyonnais should evolve in 4-4-2, with Lisandro Lopez and Bafétimbi Gomis leading the front of the attack, supported on the wings by Briand and Ederson (before his injury) or Briand and Bastos. But Yoann Gourcuff was not there, and will be absent for the beginning of season. Pjanic got hurt, Ederson is seriously injured, and Bastos, Cissokho and Pjanic are still subject of transfer rumours… Difficult to test our system with such holes in the midfield. As a result, the Lyon coach chose to give playing time to his talented young players, in particular Jérémy Pied and Clément Grenier, waiting to find his usual starters.
(But fortunately and unfortunately, most of these talented youngsters were not here to be tested, as indeed seven OL players were called to the French U20 National Team for the World Cup:defenders Sébastien Faure, Thomas Fontaine and Thimothée Kolodziejczak, midfielders Enzo Réale and Clément Grenier, forwards Alex Lacazette et Yannis Tafer.)

Other than that, some observations here and there:
-Hugo Lloris didn’t have much chance to show at what form level he currently is (he was sick for the last game and played one half in others, as usual in a friendly), but Vercoutre did, and confirmed -especially against Porto- that he is a reliable backup for Hugo
-The backline was shaky, crappy in the first games and improved over time. Cissokho alternated good and bad performances, Cris wasn’t at his best (despite his highly publicized satisfaction for the new coach’s training style), Lovren and Réveillère were globally OK and Mensah seems to prove a good CB option, if injuries decide to give him a break.
-The midfield is the biggest problem. Without Toulalan and Makoun, the absence of a good, experienced DM is hurting us. Kallström isn’t a DM so was being played out of position, which showed; and Gonalon’s poor performances didn’t help either. In the absence of everyone vaguely able to play the role of a playmaker (Gourcuff, Pjanic, Ederson being all injured), there was a gaping hole in the midfield and a real lack of good balls at the front. On the wings, Briand and Bastos both improved over time, but accuracy clearly is an issue.
- Upfront, Gomis lost weight and is in good shape, but he really needs to adjust the target as he missed many opportunities; it took time to Lisandro to ramp up , but in the last game he looked closed to his former self.
- generally speaking, there are issues with ball conservation and with passing (which, unlike some of the players seem to think, does not consist in giving the ball away to the guys with a different jersey).
- other than that,nice moves at times, a clearly different philosophy, and a footballing style that may well be fairly enjoyable to watch once we’ve solved our midfield problems.

While we’re at it, let’s continue our quick roundup for those of you who didn’t follow OL so much during the summer period:

Puel

The Puel drama goes on (see previous post here for more details), but at least the club won a first battle as the judges couldn’t conclude on Puel’s request to have an express procedure to get the 5,3 M€ he’s been asking; now that this wasn’t granted by the tribunal, OL’s treasurer will probably sleep a bit better at night.

OL Land

One hell of a headache for Jean-Michel Aulas seems to progressively decrease in intensity, and it seems the club, the city of Lyon and their partners seem to finally surmount some of the many obstacles and delays the had to face so far. The French government finally granted the declaration of public interest which was expected by the Lyon mayor to launch the long awaited consultation of the public( which is required by the building permit approval process). And Etienne Tête, the project’s fiercest opponent, also lost a legal battle to prevent the project; so things look a bit more comfortable now, and relieve a bit of stress from Aulas.

The OL Feminines

Jean-Michel Aulas made no mistery of the fact that when the boys squad were screwing up big time last season, it is with the girls team that he found comfort, and boy do I understand him … They outclassed the whole championship, winning each and every game (with scorelines up to 13-0!). Not content with this achievement, they went on and simply won the Champions League… It’s only justice that this continued support, promotion and investment into women football finally paid off. As a proof, the Lyon team then provided 10 of the 21 players of the French National Team, who went to Germany to participate to the World Cup, where they made it to the semifinals… All hopes seem allowed for next season, as they even recruited the French NT starting goalkeeper (but, that’s weird, to only be the backup of Lyon’s starting GK… who didn’t make it to the final World Cup squad. Logic, anyone?). Next season will be interesting, as due to the broadcasting success some of the championship games will be freely shown on TV; and the Olympics are approaching, for which the french women NT are qualified…

The Champions League

The Olympique Lyonnais now knows the last obstacle before participating again in the Champions’ League. OL couldn’t avoid one – and arguably the worst- of the big guns of this draw, and will face the Rubin Kazan. Former champion of Russia in 2008 and 2009, the Russian club lost some important players these last years, but are a strong player of a Russian championship in good progression. The last season, Rubin put up a good show in a Champions’ League group, ending third and having posed problems to FC Barcelona and Inter Milan. This season, in the previous CL qualifying round they obtained a convincing win versus Dynamo Kiev, and in the Russian championship they occupy the fourth place after 18 days. Quite simply, it is the last team to beat Barca in Santiago Bernabeu. So, in technical terms, this is what you’d call a really shitty draw. They’re now past the mid season, whilst Lyon will face them on 16 August, right at the start of the season, in what will only be their third official match..To make things worse, the return leg will take place on August 24, only a week later, at the Central stadium of Kazan. You wanted a challenge to start your coaching career, Rémi? There you go! No need to thank, my pleasure.

So, now that this overview of the club is done, it’s time to turn our attention to the new season that is about to start, likely to be the most challenging we had to face in many years…

First things first : Nice, the black sheep

Nice do not want to relive the same scenario as the past season. Saved from relegation on the last day of the championship, the club has no grace period: three points are already essential for a team which aims at securing their place in Ligue 1, at least. The new president, Jean-Pierre Rivière, who injected 12 M€ in the clubs accounts, does not intend to only aim at surviving and hopes to gradually bring Nice closer to the summit. For that purpose, the OGC kept its base: Courted by other clubs, Ospina, Mouloungui and Mounier are still there, and new young players were integrated to the group. Camel Meriem, Fabian Monzon, Kevin Gomis as well as Fabrice Abriel arrived, whereas Eric Roy was confirmed at the head of the team. ” This season, it is still particular because the club took a new direction. We want to take advantage of the reorganization at the top of the club to recreate something again, a different run-up. We know that that passes by a good first go at the championship on Saturday “, said Didier Digard, the captain. And they may well do so, as they’ve regularly posed problems to the various Lyon teams who faced them (43 encounters, 20 Nice wins, 10 draws, 13 Lyon wins). Let’s hope the team will stay focus, not drop their attention towards the end of the game like last year, and will keep the former Lyonnais under control, as they traditionally hurt us in such circumstances.

The probable teams:

Nice: Ospina – Clerc, Mabiala, Pejcinovic, Monzon – Digard – Meriem, Sablé, Hellebuyck, Mounier – Mouloungui

Lyon : Lloris – Reveillère, Cris, Lovren, Cissokho – Briand, Gonalons, Källström, Bastos – Lisandro, Gomis

Allez l’OL!

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