This week Vaishali, Jon and Andrew discuss Lille moving into their new stadium and drawing with Nancy. PSG failing to win their first Ligue 1 game away at Ajaccio and Lyon continued their good start to the season with an excellent 4-1 win over Troyes including Michel Bastos excellent overhead kick.
We catch up on the latest standings from Ligue 2 then we looked at the games between Marseille v Sochaux and Lorient v Montpellier before previewing two of this weekends fixtures.
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at 9:55 am
Thanks for the Podcast again. Particularly liked the Ligue 2 summary, however you’re discussion of l’OM wasn’t quite up to your usual standards. I don’t mean to be too critical because I know you’re doing this out of love (collectively) but it seemed to be too many cheap shots (how many Gignac looks fat jokes until it becomes laboured?) and not the analysis you’re used to.
L’OM have over spent in the past, don’t have the budget anymore, and thus have to sell players like M’Bia and Azpilicueta to try to generate cash and reduce the wage bill. The squad last season was, in my view, a bit bloated and had too many non-performers on high wages. Without Champions League football (read money) after a traumatic campaign last year there was a need the shear back the cost of the squad, and logically therefore reduce the quality of the squad. This to me seems, sadly, logical, but not something to lambast the club over. You (the authors of your Ligue 1 preview document) even made mention of this situation earlier in the year.
The Barton thing I’m not sure of, but in a weird way it could help, as if Azpi goes, and the need for Fanni with N’Koulou, Kabore logically for mine may be needed at right back and the need for another powerful central midfielder to sit deeper than Valbuena with Cheyrou. Barton may well provide value for wages, even if I’m not sure he’s the best option in the world, but there is a real need for a central midfielder at the moment.
I don’t want this to come across as overly negative, I tend to follow francophone media to cover OM and probably pay closer attention than you (the authors) who cover a whole league. What you do across the league for an anglophone audience is amazing, but this part of the show came across, for mine, as not quite being at your best.
Thanks as always for the show.
at 11:00 am
Hi mate
Thank you for your feedback and continued support of the site/show. First of all the main reason for the shorter OM segment was due to time. We had planned to go over the match in the same way as in the first half but we have ran way over time and we weren’t able to go into as much depth, so apologies for that.
With regards to Gignac I was actually quite complimentary of him, yes the jokes are easy, but you have to add a little bit of fun. I did say he looked a lot happier and was playing well.
With the Marseille squad as you said trying to cover a whole league you are never going to know the day to day dealings as much as the proper fans (unless it’s my team Lill) but from an observer of the league and someone who tries to pay attention to as much as possible I agree that changes to the Marseille squad need to be made I just don’t agree with the way they have gone about it.
I wouldn’t say the squad was heavy in any way, the squad is very small, outside the starting XI there was little quality at all. For me the best way to resolve that is to sell your most worthy comodity (Remy) and then spent that money on 2-3 players, keeping some aside in the process. To think about selling Ayew, Azpi, M’Bia just thins the squad even more. Marseille have the players to easily finish top 6 but with any sort of injury crisis and when the African cup of Nations comes round in January this current squad will severly suffer.
I’m sure we will be talking about the MHSC v OM game next week, so hopefully the conversation will be up to your standard
Thanks mate
Andrew
at 7:35 am
Thanks for the quick response Andrew, the timing issue makes sense, and I suppose the limited English language coverage of OM means that I pay closer attention to what you say. I was hoping for someone else’s take on the squad and progress in a bit more depth. Perhaps it is also me who needs adjustment to l’OM’s new standing within the pecking order of Ligue 1.
I do hope the comment was taken in the spirit of being constructive rather than just criticizing from afar.
I’m looking forward to hearing about your reaction to the Montpellier game.
Tom