The Perrin Chronicles: Part II
By: Inara | December 16th, 2007
Does Alain Perrin fill you with confidence? Do you think he knows what he’s doing? Or do you think he just prays that Karim Benzema will get a good result for him?
I don’t mean to be cynical in what is otherwise a good week for Lyon, but you have to wonder how much of Lyon’s success so far this season is due to Perrin, as opposed to the super resurgence of his players, who have been playing together for ages and who actually know more about winning than their manager.
Like most Lyon fans, I’m breathing a sigh of relief that we’ve made it this far into the season with CL qualification and our usual first place position intact. And he seems manage player egos relatively well. Given the situation amongst the squad following Gerard Houllier’s departure, I applaud Perrin’s efforts at making sure that the senior players are once again on each other’s Christmas card lists.
But I haven’t been convinced that Perrin is a good tactician. When he first came to the club, he stubbornly clung to his vision of a 4-4-2 despite Lyon not having the right players for it. And after the team got their asses kicked by Barcelona and Rangers, Jean-Michel Aulas and Bernard Lacombe had to have a “friendly lunch” with him in order to make him see reason.
Take yesterday’s draw to Nice. What logical explanation is there for starting the same 10 of the 11 players that also started against Rangers two and a half days ago? I know Lyon’s bench is a shallow at the moment, but we could have rotated at least three or four players.
Hence the lack of a match report from me. I don’t have anything to say about yesterday’s game except that the players were tired and couldn’t do much besides holding back Nice (Hugo Lloris and Ederson can play for Lyon anytime!).
He looks like a scared rabbit 75% of the time.
Is Perrin’s over dependence on his starting XI grounded in fear? Is he that afraid of losing? True, Lyon lost at Caen with a rotated squad, and I guess Perrin figured that a draw was better than a loss, but he has to have faith in his bench. Mathieu Bodmer, Nadir Belhadj, Kader Keita, and Fabio Santos are all very good players. They are missing match freshness, but if Perrin played them more often, maybe they would better coming off the bench.
Lyon have a long trek ahead of them if they want to compete in four competitions. He’s got to utilize his fringe players, or else the starters will be run ragged (see winter 2007). Why else are do we have a bench if not to provide options?
Category: Team News and Rumors
Subscribe
|
Print
|
Share
      |
Comments
-
I do not and never have thought he is the right man for the job,-what has he won ever? Other than some crapy french cup[sacked at portsmouth and marseille-say no more.]
Posted from
United States
-
Perrin brought Troyes to the UEFA cup. Quite an achievement.
I question a lot of his decisions (including yesterday’s), but people should stop blaming the coach for the bad results and giving props to the players for the good results.
The coach is just as responsible as the players for good and bad results.
And BTW, Belhadj was sick yesterday and couldn’t play.
Posted from
United States -
I guess Perrin is actually not that bad as I have previously thought (we can’t deny that much credit for Lyon’s recent succesess goes to him), but I really can’t understand some of his decisions. Why didn’t he play Baros instead of Benzema and Bodmer instead of Juninho? If they aren’t going to play now, when the rest of the squad is so damn tired, when are they going to play? Probably he doesn’t want to risk any points because of rotation, but this time it backfired, and I guess most people actually thought that it would. Perhaps Perrin knows something that we don’t (or vice versa)…
Posted from
United States -
Don’t get me wrong, I give full credit to Perrin for a lot of things, especially the fact that the players seem to love playing together again. There’s been an entire shift in attitude within the squad, and Perrin’s mostly responsible for it. And of course, the players deserve a good amount of blame for lackluster results.
But I just feel he is tactically limited.
Posted from
United States -
Inara, remember the time when you wanted Perrin to make up his mind and field the same starting XI two games in a row? Well, it looks like he took your advice a little bit too seriously…
About the tactics, I completely agree with you. I looks like he has given up on making the plans by himself and let players play and Aulas decide. At least this is the impression that I get.
Posted from
United States -
Tactics is a hard thing to evaluate.
When it’s going wrong, the coach always gets blamed for his tactics.
However, you never notice good tactics when your team wins.I blamed Perrin for his rookie mistake in Barcelona. He killed his team with his tactics then. He didn’t right he ship against the Rangers at Gerland (nothing on the wings). I also didn’t like his subs in Glasgow. Nor his using (or lackthere of) of Bodmer.
However, the way Lyon played Stuttgart was brilliant both times. He did well against Barca in the home game (that Lyon should have lost if not for Juni, Keita and good defensive schemes).
Posted from
United States -
I do have to admit that I liked his midfield of Fabio Santos and Toulalan. That was very pleasantly surprising.
Evilo, do you think Perrin can be successful for Lyon? And when I say successful, I mean as in doing better than his predecessors? Obviously there is a certain amount of luck involved (like no more bad injuries), but do you think he has what it takes to stop Lyon from being big match bottlers?
Posted from
United States -
Nicolas, if I had known Perrin read that entry, I also would have included the advice “trust yourself.”
It’s just that he seems scared sometimes. At the beginning, he took risks, and I didn’t mind that. He made the effort to discover his best starting 11 (though he made a poor decision in experimenting against Barca and Rangers). But now he doesn’t want to do that anymore. Lyon are so versatile and we have two players – Bodmer and Ben Arfa – who can be utilized in other ways, perhaps in better ways. And what does it say that three of our summer signings hardly see pitch time?
Posted from
United States -
Perrin sticks with the starting 11 because he is a coward, simple as that. Keita has so far been disappoiting, Belhadj has not been given a chance at all, and Bodmer is used in defence. So that is a whole different mess. What I dont like is he doesnt rotate players even a little. Not starting wit the same team every game is acceptable as long as the team doesnt loose its effectiveness. Use Mounier, Remy, Paillot, Beynie, Charvet, Abendzoar if only to keep the starters fresh after such a tiresome game in Scotland. Im pretty sure the result would have been the same if he had not played the same starting line and used some back ups like Bodmer, Baros, Paillot, Mounier and Keita.
Also, Ederson and Lloris certainly played like they wanted to impress the Lyon staff and fans. Id welcome both with open arms, they are phenomenal players.
Posted from
United States -
Well I think that aulas and Lacombe didn’t like Perrin’s trials. so I think he is just following a bit to closely what aulas said after the Rangers game (as Nicolas said).
I am very happy with Perrin’s job apart from the two first CL games (Barca and Rangers).
If Lyon want to improve, they can’t just rely on individual performances (did I say Benzema?), and need to be able to use players differently.I really do think the 4-4-2 can work really well. Benzema likes to have his support striker. And it is a shame to keep Baros and Fred off the pitch. Because despite their actual form, they are incredible goal scorers. May I remind you that Fred is scoring 1 goal every two games in average…
And everytime Baros is on the pitch, Benzema scores more goals. Also, it would allow us to plays 4 midfielder and use Bodmer a bit more.
I would be happy to have games without real wingers, and give them some rest.a midfield with Toulalan, Santos (Bodmer), Kallstrom and Juninho looks great.
As you said Inara, lots of our players can play in different positions. Then let’s do it. Let’s put Bodmer as the playmaker. Let’s put Ben Arfa (or Govou) as a supporting striker.
But I honestly see Perrin stay for a long time in Lyon. although lots of people say he has no previous record, he did great with Troyes and always had better results than Lyon in the French cup (If you compare the level of the teams). But he needs to “trust himself” as you said.
Posted from
Japan -
It is true that he looks like a scarred rabbit almost all the time. He absolutely messed up Portsmouth when he was there, and Lyon had a bad start with him. At least Lyon caught up, hopefully hes back to his winning ways, but theres something about him thats just not right for lyon…
Posted from
Canada -
INARA : I’m firmly biased here because I hate Santini and Houllier. Not even a little, I fully hate both of these scums.
So while I do like Le Guen, I’ll remind everyone that PLG always used the same 11.
Perrin doesn’t have a lot to do to succeed more than his predecessors, since they all failed miserably in the CL.
Miserably because they should have sent PSV back home if PLG had been less tentative, and beaten Milan if Houllier hadn’t screwed everything with his subs (I’m not even talking about the Roma debacle).
Perrin will do as well as the others, and with a little luck better.
But all of these guys aren’t CL winning coaches caliber if that’s you ask. Perrin is a decent coach, PLG is a decent coach, but both lack the experience and assurance to try things at the highest level. Both seem tentative against big teams. They both lack ambition and are playing like they’re the underdogs.What Lyon needs is a proven winner. Even an asshole like Capello or even a lower profile Deschamps.
Posted from
France -
pride, I agree with your assessment of the 4-4-2, it should be used for rotation of the squad as the extra players we have may fit better into such a formation. But the times Perrin used the 4-4-2 it did not work all that well so more tactical training would be required for it. Also, seeing as how the academy produces wingers, not outside midfielders, it would be difficult to integrate Mounier, Remy, Karaboue, Monsanto or Pied into a 4-4-2 in the future if they were taught to play as a winger their whole Lyon career. The same can be said for Govou and Keita who are primarily wingers.
Posted from
United States
Comments are closed
Home 
