AS Nancy – 2012/13 Season Review
With virtually the last kick of the game, Yohan Mollo’s free-kick headed towards the top corner, aided by a fumble from Brest ‘keeper Alexis Thebaux, and it found the back of the net. Three valuable points on the opening day, and Jean Fernandez would have been confident that his Nancy side could build on the previous year’s 11th place finish. Amazingly they wouldn’t win another league game until January, by which time Mollo was gone, Fernandez was gone and 11th place looked a long, long way away. This time ASNL had left it too left and despite the heroics of new boss Patrick Gabriel, demotion to Ligue 2 was all but inevitable.
For the first six months of the season that Mollo free-kick was pretty much the highlight. Djamel Bakar’s first half strike ruined Lille’s party as they christened the brand new Grand Stade Lille Metropole. Narrow defeats to both Marseille and Paris Saint-Germain showed that there was fighting spirit in the squad, but too many draws against the teams around them caused a slide towards the relegation zone, one they wouldn’t be able to recover from. Once Mollo left for Saint-Etienne during the winter break, most of ASNL’s creativity was gone. They were already struggling to put the ball in the back of the net, so letting go the biggest creative influence in the side spelled danger.
After losing Bakaye Traore in the summer, and Massadio Haidara during the winter, new players had to step up and prove themselves. Lossemy Karaboue and Thomas Mangani did nothing to harm their reputations in the midfield,and Romain Grange showed glimpses of promise, but without a goalscorer it was frustrating for both the fans and the players.
The feelings in the stand were well and truly summed up with a huge arrow pointing to the goal and a sign – “LE BUT EST ICI!” – that said all that needed to be said. Only Reims and Brest scored fewer goals, and although things picked up after Gabriel’s appointment, with 25 of their 38 goals scored after the winter break, it was too little, too late.
On the positive side the 58 goals they conceded measures up against FC Lorient who finished eighth and challenged for Europe, one of the main reasons for this was the performance of the unforgiving and imperious Sebastien Puygrenier. The former Bolton and Zenit Saint-Petersburg man was a beacon of hope, not just in the back-line, but finishing as Nancy’s top goalscorer with seven. That pretty much says all you need to know about Nancy’s season. There is little doubt that Puygrenier will return to Ligue 1 next season and leave Nancy to fight the good fight, but no one could have questioned the big man’s commitment in trying to save the club he returned to in 2012. After playing close to 200 games for the club he should be mentioned in the same breath as Michel Platini, Mustapha Hadji and eh…Tony Cascarino.
With only one win before the winter break, praise should be heaped upon Patrick Gabriel for guiding his side to an astonishing eight victories in the last four months, when finally picking up points against the other relegations strugglers gave ASNL some hope. Lorient, Marseille, Sochaux, Troyes, Evian and Brest all fell to Gabriel’s sword but in the end a two-point gap and a minus-20 goal difference proved too large a hill to climb.
Thoughts go back to the 3-3 draw away at Troyes, 3-1 up with only nine minutes to go, but Benjamin Nivet scored a late double to steal a point for the home side. Two vital points lost, two vital points that could have kept them in Ligue 1.
Now Gabriel has the job of rebuilding his side in Ligue 2. If the vultures don’t swoop down to steal away some of the emerging talent there is enough in that side to push for automatic promotion. What they need is a goal-scorer, or at least someone who can read their sign.
FINAL POSITION: 18th
Review by @Gibney_A