Well, where does one start? Brest finished rock bottom of Ligue 1 accumulating just 29 points, a full 10 points short of safety. They racked up eight more defeats than anyone else in the league. What’s more they scored the fewest goals and had the second-worst defensive record. Not to mention, they have the worst home & away records. Overall, fairly empirical proof of their short-comings and thus their position in the classement. If further confirmation were needed, Brest now have the dubious distinction of finishing the season with a run of eleven straight defeats, matching RC Strasbourg’s disastrous dénouement of 2007/08.
Brest spent three seasons in Ligue 1 and each of them they spent large amounts of time at the wrong end of the table, flirting with relegation. Whereas in previous seasons a late season flourish saved them; not this season. In the 19 post-winter-trêve matches, the team from Finistère took a paltry eight points. There were green shoots of hope with a credible draw against Lyon and a good away win at Bordeaux but that really was the best of it for Brest.
There was something of history repeating itself for the Breton side, a January sale of the main attacker leading to a predictable decline in goal-scoring prowess. And if you really do want succeed in this game you have to put “the biscuit in the basket” once in a while. For Nolan Roux in 2012 read Eden Ben Basat in 2013 who in departing for Toulouse in January left a large hole in the attack, Florian Raspentino was brought in on loan from Marseille to compensate but failed, only contributing 4 goals. Ben Besat still finished as SB29’s top scorer with nine goals to his name – a striking indictment if ever there were one.
Another element of déjà vu came along at the beginning of April when manager Landry Chauvin was sacked. The club had similarly dismissed Alex Dupont towards the end of the 2011-12 season. Once again the reins fell to club legend Corentin Martins to come in as caretaker. In 2012, Martins oversaw five matches and took a vital eight points to achieve safety. However lightning didn’t strike twice; Martins had eight matches to replicate the feat, failing spectacularly in losing all eight.
Changes are afoot at Brest, Michel Guyot has passed the presidency to Yvon Kermarec, and Alex Dupont has been re-hired to repeat the job he did in 2010. The squad at his disposal may not bear much resemblance to the squad that figured this season, something of a standard occurrence where relegation is concerned. The vultures will, no doubt, come looking for bargains and they have a number of players out of contract.
One really does get the feeling SB29 owe their fans a good season next time around. During an end of season home game the fans held up a banner remonstrating about the players’ perceived lack of fight. The banner read - Merci pour le suicide collectif depuis six mois - (Thanks for the 6 months of collective suicide)…
The club appears to have acted swiftly in bringing about changes to atone for 2013’s catastrophe and their fans will be hoping that the club can bounce back at the first time of asking. With shrewd and intelligent recruitment coupled with the fact that there are no presumptive favourites for promotion in Ligue 2 next season they could just manage that, albeit Ligue 2 can be a proper slog to get out of.
FINAL POSITION: 20th
Review by @SimonScutt