Lyon vs Nancy : The restart

Ding ding, the international break is over, it’s time to wake up as the Ligue 1 championship resumes this weekend. All teams will have rested their players -especially those who only have a few or no internationals- and taken the time at training to work on aspects they don’t usually touch upon, all this in a more relaxed atmosphere.

Lyon are no exception, but with a larger number of internationals. The club is accustomed to such downtime, but their management is complicated by the amount of international who left the ranks. “The internationals only came back on Wednesday and it’s annoying not being able to work together during this break,” said Remi Garde.

The return of the injured
For Ederson, Cris and Yoann Gourcuff, the season begins Oct. 15, more than two months after everyone else. This is not entirely true for the Brazilian captain who played the first game on August 6 in Nice (3-1). But beyond the collective challenge, the defender faces such a personal challenge, given the performance of the duo-Lovren Kone in his absence, that it is almost as if he were starting from scratch. Against Nancy, Cris will probably start, but probably only because Dejan Lovren is suspended. given the last two weeks of training, the Brazilian seems hungry. Even if he denies it, there’s always going to be a bit of revenge feeling for him, who accumulated injuries, against performance-and skepticism. Rémi Garde seems to have made clear that Cris will have to regain his spot and that the Lovren-Koné pair is the starting pair at the moment.

So he needs to prove his true worth… Sounds like someone else? Gourcuff, of course, who makes his return five months and a half after his last game. Now on the way back to fitness, he will need playing time, and may well be offered some today as he’s likely to play. He for sure will be the most closely watched player of all 22 if he gets on the pitch.

Deprived of competition, too, Ederson is the most discreet but will certainly not be the least valuable asset of the lot. With all these players, Lyon will be stronger ahead of a tough series of games (Real, anyone?). But the return of the leaders (until that of Lisandro) may trim the playing time for young players (Grenier, Lacazette). “It’s my role to make them understand that we need everyone. ” said Garde. Fortunately, The club recently signed a string of contract extensions, including Gonalons and Grenier. So hopefully they bear with us for quite some time..

The recent form
After an impressive start, injuries, suspensions on one side, and youth and inexperience on the other seemed to slow down the machine in the last games. OL remain with two losses (0-1 in Caen and Paris 0-2) for a win (Bordeaux 3-1) in his last three matches in Ligue 1. 3 points in 3 games, it’s somewhat embarrassing for a title contender, even though the second and last defeat was against the rich and powerful PSG, and even though we’re still in a fairly good position. But “it is not enough compared to what I expected,” says Garde. It is also a significant slump compared to the first six days with14 points, or 2.33 per game. This stat is therefore reduced to one point a game on this recent series. Meanwhile, Marseille and Lille took 5 points and PSG had a full pocket with 9 points.

As for Nancy, after replacing loyal Nancy coach Pablo Correa with former Auxerre coach Jean Fernandez, and having lost several of their best players (Nguemo, Hadji or Féret) they’ve been struggling since the season started. They’re currently last but Garde doesn’t care. “It’s not because of that that I should be confident. I rather think that Nancy have not yet found some keys in their game, and I know that it is difficult to maneuver with their style of play “.

The teams compo

Nancy on Saturday, Real on Tuesday… It is hard to believe that Guarde will not take the prospect of the trip to Madrid, in three days, in consideration when writing down who to start and who to replace early in today’s game. Hence the following compo:

OL: Vercoutre, Réveillère, Cris (C), B. Koné, Cissokho – Fofana, Gonalons – Briand, Grenier, Bastos – Gomis.

Nancy: Grégorini – Helder, André Luiz, Loties, Lemaitre – Moukandjo, Karaboué, Mangani, Brison – Niculae, Jung Jo-gook

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Category: Team News and Rumors