Snow idea where Montpellier go from here

The reigning champions – last season, they won 25, drew 7, lost 6, with a superb home record, winning 16, drawing two, and losing only 1, a 3-0 defeat to PSG in game 8. With Toulouse, they had the best defence in the league, conceding only 34 goals and keeping 17 clean sheets, and their stock-in-trade was the 1-0 win, the final result in eleven matches. They had the third best attack with 68 goals, and the top scorer, Olivier Giroud, on 21.  Things were good.

Then came the summer; there was basking. Giroud was sold, but two new strikers and a winger were brought in to aid the attack, and a new defender, formerly captain of the other best-defence-in-the-league, to make things even tighter at the back. Things were good.

Then came the new season.

Ten games in, at the end of October, they had 11 points and were sitting in 13^th place, having previously hovered around 16^th.  August was horrendous (one point from three games), September a little better (seven from four), and October bad (three from three).  They had also just bollocksed up their easiest Champions League game, giving up the lead at home against Olympiakos after performing fairly well in the first two matches. Things were definitely not good.

Looking at the stats, as I am prone to do, it is very difficult to discern a pattern to Montpellier’s season; a wise man (possibly Barney Ronay – definitely somebody on the Football Weekly pod) once said that “form” is not relevant for mid-table clubs, as the reason they’re mid-table is that they cannot put a consistent run together. That certainly seems relevant for Montpellier, even now they have recovered a bit and pushed up to ninth, winning six of the last ten games. In fact, I started writing this before the winter wonderland trip to Stade Geoffroy Guichard, so the original thesis was that Montpellier are back! and putting a run together!  and… there you go.

The season can be roughly summed up as: very poor start, mild recovery, bad blip, another recovery, slight setback, mixed but reasonable start to 2013, punctuated by occasional 4-1 hidings. They have already conceded 32 league goals, have only kept 6 clean sheets, and with 39 in the goals scored column, are behind on last season’s goal tally (47 at this point).

However – that still puts them joint second in the attack table. This season has been a bit weird overall: having started strongly, OM and OL are falling away, and while PSG are beginning to motor, even the expected champions are having off-days and odd results. Also, traditional big-hitters are mid-table (paging Lille), and usually comfortable potterers are either in all sorts of trouble (Nancy), or vying for a place in Europe (Nice). On that, the two teams out of the Champions League didn’t just drop out, but missed hitting the Europa League on the way down (Montpellier, and hello again Lille), and Marseille, one of only two French clubs to have got their hands on European silverware, did not have a happy time of things in C3.

So – what happened?  The sale of Giroud and purchase of the new boys had two effects in principle; the need to integrate four new players, and to adapt to a different attacking approach (Charbonnier might be the same size as Olive, but, like Herrera, has a different playing style). Then, a spate of injuries and suspensions added problems in practice; it was difficult to maintain consistency of selection and ease the new players in gently, and Girard was forced, rather than able, to make changes. Players were being played out of position, and the thin squad meant that substitutions would often require in-game positional switches, further disrupting the flow (in 30 Ligue 1 and C1 games to date, 17 involved at least one positional switch during the game).

Then, just when things were looking a bit brighter and Montpellier had made it into the top half of the table for the first time, a 4-1 hiding (you again Lille?) was a disappointing end to 2012. The stuttering has continued in 2013: they have nine points from five in the league, but they threw away the lead against Marseille in game 21, awkwardly reminiscent of how they folded to two late goals from Olympiakos, and got knocked out of both cups in the space of a week. January also brought another problem – the transfer window opened and an ill wind blew through Mosson.

Much of the rumour-focus was on Younes Belhanda, and Louis Nicollin’s repeated public statements about the player made it look like he was definitely off. However, Fenerbahce failed to pony up an appropriate amount (or, at least, an appropriate instalment plan). LouLou’s remarks will no doubt have soured the relationship further, but as he has also managed to alienate René Girard, allegedly off at the end of the season, perhaps playmaker and manager will bond over a shared annoyance with the big man. Rumours also linked John Utaka with a move to Al-Gharafa in Qatar, as he is out of contract at the end of the season, and the thinking seemed to be that getting a million euros for him would be good business.

Although Belhanda and Utaka are still around, you can understand why Girard is (allegedly) cross about Nicollin’s approach: Remy Cabella is a fine replacement for Belhanda in centre midfield, but there would have been no back-up for that position (when both were unavailable for a cup match against third-tier Bourg-Péronnas, winger Anthony Mounier was moved centrally, which would not be ideal against a Ligue 1 side); similarly while Utaka could be off on a free at the end of the season, with Ait-Fana still injured, Cabella often needed in the middle, Mounier still patchy, Jonathan Tinhan loaned to Arles-Avignon, and Camara occasionally needed up-front, options for wingers are similarly a bit light. Utaka’s physical presence and buccaneering spirit in the last half of the season will arguably be worth a lot more than €1million.

It was the one January sale that came off that apparently really gave Girard the hump, however; captain Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa going to Newcastle. While no Montpellier fan would begrudge Mapou a move after ten years’ service to the club, the timing was atrocious; the sale left the club with only two senior centre backs, Daniel Congré (usually deployed at right-back) and Vitorino Hilton (35), while Abdelhamid El-Kaoutari was off at the CAN, and usual cover Benjamin Stambouli recovered from a foot injury. There are also knock-on effects – if Congré is needed in the middle, then with Garry Bocaly out injured, Cyril Jeunechamp banned for a year, and Stambouli’s foot, the only remaining right-back is Mathieu Deplagne; and if El-Kaoutari goes central, there is no cover for Henri Bedimo at left-back.  Five men for four positions; Montpellier’s defence is two absences away from calling up 22-year-old Teddy Mezague, who has never played a minute for the senior team.

Looking forwards, therefore, trying to predict where Montpellier will end up is nigh-on impossible; another August or October and they are in trouble – retain the league form of December and January, and things look OK. They have stopped drawing matches*  – but they still have a tendency to concede late goals**.  Girard is still having to move people about mid-match, although less frequently now; and only after 30 Ligue 1 and C1 games has one of the two named strikers broken into the first XI based on minutes played (Herrera).  There have been dressing-room fallouts between Girard and Jourdren, Girard and Estrada, and the Belhanda situation remains sensitive; but there have been positives, including Remy Cabella’s wonderful form, Charbonnier and Herrera both starting to come good, and the shifts put in by Souleymane Camara on point as well as on the wing.

Last season, Montpellier took the title with a perfect storm; good in attack, good in defence, lucky with injuries, a united dressing room, and a generally positive vibe about the place, due mainly to the fact that even late on in the season, they weren’t actually expected to win the thing. There was a general assumption that they would drop off the pace, first by the end of October, then by Christmas, then by Easter, then…they won. There were blips along the way, of course, but basically nothing went badly wrong; this season, the storm has mostly been blowing the other way, a number of negative factors combining and compounding the problem(s) – scoring less, conceding more, selection issues, internecine bitching.

The result is that you cannot split Montpellier’s season neatly into two periods ‘bad’ and ‘good’ – and what comes next will no doubt be a continuation of that. One can be cautiously optimistic, however, that the worst of the weather is behind La Paillade, so while there may yet be scattered showers, there are sunnier days to come.

* on which – all five league draws were 1-1, so if they start again, that could be a decent correct score bet

** in Ligue 1 and C1 there have been a total of 43 conceded – 20 were in the last half hour, of which 9 have been in the last ten minutes (21% of the goals in 11% of the time)