Montpellier: La Paillade Have Some Concerns

Philippa Booth

Five games in might be a bit early to be gauging how a season is going, but when it’s going this badly, it’s difficult not to. Montpellier have a solitary point from a goalless draw away at newly-promoted Troyes, and scored their first goal of the season in injury time in Week Five, at home to Saint-Etienne. By then, 2-0 down, there was no question of getting points from the game, but Joris Marveaux’s eventual angry lash into the net caused a massive sigh of relief from a fanbase watching in growing trepidation.

A Striking Problem

This situation is actually not that unusual. After the title-winning 2011/12 season where they scored 68 goals (3rd in the attack table), things have been considerably less goal-tastic. A ninth-place finish in 2012/13 saw them score 54, the Jean-Fernandez-affected 2013/14 tally was 45, and things only recovered slightly last season with 46, after a pretty slow start.

Montpellier’s financial situation means they have a habit of selling at least two key players every season: Olivier Giroud left in summer 2012, followed by captain and central defensive rock Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa in January 2013; that summer saw Younes Belhanda and Henri Bedimo leave; in 2014 it was Remy Cabella and Benjamin Stambouli; and this summer the club waved off Abdelhamid El-Kaoutari and Anthony Mounier. Noteably, all this selling on meant that each summer the club lost their top goalscorer from the preceding season – Giroud (21), Belhanda (10, equal with Souleymane Camara), Cabella (14) and most recently the end of Lucas (11) Barrios’ loan deal.

Since Giroud, Montpellier haven’t been able to bring in a reliable permanent centre forward – the attack did OK in 2012/13 but largely without the help of acquisitions Emmanuel Herrera or Gaetan Charbonnier, both of whom were shipped on. Nobody came close to Cabella in 2013/14 with returning hero Victor Hugo Montanier, on-loan disciplinary issue Mbaye Niang, ever-present Camara and left-back Siaka Tiene all on four. Last season, there were valuable contributions from Mounier on the wing (9 – now in Bologna) and from Morgan Sanson in midfield (6 – still injured).

Squad Shape and Size

The Sanson situation is also instructive – an utter bargain for €700k in summer 2013, he may have been protected from interest from elsewhere with ACL-knack; his return date is still uncertain (hopefully mid-October). Add to that, the absence of midfield machine Jonas Martin against Saint-Etienne with calf-strain, and things look a little disconnected. In the second half of last season, Montpellier’s final push to attempt to qualify for Europe was impacted because their two pivotal players couldn’t be played together – Martin missed six games with a dislocated shoulder, and had only just got back into action when Sanson’s injury ruled him out for the last six.

Individual absences are problematic in themselves but have knock-on effects; the overall situation is reminiscent of 2012/13, when injuries and suspensions in a shallow squad meant an ever-changing starting XI and frequent in-game changes after substitutions because of the lack of cover (broken down here).

So far, in five games Courbis has used 18 different starters and 22 players in total, with only Bryan Dabo managing to play every minute (in at least three different positions). Players are constantly being moved around mid-match, particularly in the defence, and it does seem like the tactical changes are mostly looking at the board to see which position Dabo hasn’t played in yet; ostensibly a right-back, he used to be a DM/CB, has also played left-back, somehow ended up at left wing against PSG last season, and seemed to play at least part of the Angers match as striker. If things down’t improve, it’s tempting to say just start him there, as he always gives his all.

Also brought to mind is the start of 2013/14, when possibly explicable individual results aggregated to ‘not good’ overall (broken down here). In the first match of the season, a 2-0 defeat at home to newly-promoted Angers, captain and centre-back Hilton was suspended, leading to a back four made up of full-backs and a 20-year-old debutant in Ramy Bensebaini. It was hoped that was an aberration. Lose 1-0 away at Rennes? That can happen. Losing 1-0 at home to champions PSG was a better result than many were expecting. For Saint-Etienne, Stephane Ruffier made at least four great saves in on of his periodic oh-so-that-s-why-he’s-in-the-national-set-up matches, as the home side out-shot their opponents. But 0-0 away at Troyes? Back to that striking problem.

Over the international break, at least something was done to address that, with Mustapha Yatabare coming in on loan, and he played the second half against les Verts. But there is a significant difference between the traditional player-shedding of previous years and this window – Montpellier aim for a surplus on transfer dealings, and have still just about made it, but their income from sales has dropped from €20m, €13m and €14m in the last three seasons to €4m this summer. Quite simply, it looks like they have run out of bankable players to sell to be able to bring in strength in depth. Yes, Sanson would probably have attracted high-ish bids had he been fit, but both Mounier and El-Kaoutari went for €2m apiece, which didn’t leave much room for purchases.

Prospects – Somebody, Somewhere

Things aren’t looking good, therefore, but it’s not like we haven’t been here before. It seems that Martin’s injury is not serious, although Camara (hamstring) and goalkeeper Geoffrey Jourdren (shoulder) could be out for a while. Jonathan Ligali’s doing a decent job in goal, and hopefully Martin can come back into play next week, as the midfield really need to work out how to pass the ball forwards to a colleague, which was not greatly in evidence against Saint-Etienne. In Sanson’s absence, Ryad Boudebouz has been flitting around, and is arguably more of a natural number 10 than Montpellier’s number 20. Also, they need to sort out who is going to play on the left after the departure of Mounier – so far Kevin Berigaud and Djamel Bakar have been tried there, and the returning Jean Deza could be another option. But Yatabare should bed in, after making some promising moves in his debut before realising he had nobody to cross to; he replaced youngster Quentin Cornette, who had similarly been busy in the first half.

Last season, the defence held things together while the attack got going, which certainly isn’t happening this time around. It may not have been the biggest news of the transfer window, but El-Kaoutari going to Palermo has left a big hole in the squad; while Bensebaini is a good prospect, he is very young and his error to let Nolan Roux through for Saint-Etienne’s second demonstrated that he does not (yet) have the level of measured reliability of the man he is replacing.

With Hilton now 38, it is even more important that his CB partner is a runner, and not going to need someone to cover for him at speed. Also to say frequent rosaries that il Capitão stays fit: technically, Montpellier have four centre-backs available, the others being William Remy (in on a free from Dijon) and Dylan Gissi, with Daniel Congre and Ellyes Skhiri – and Dabo, naturally – also able to fill in – but ‘filling in’ leads to disruption and gaps being left elsewhere, so more shuffling around, and, inevitably, more misunderstandings that will lead to goals.

Montpellier’s next five fixtures will be crucial; whether or not they can pull themselves together and pick up some points could define their season – and their manager’s future. And it’s a tricky list – first away to cheerfully creative Caen, then two home games on the bounce against Monaco and Lorient, and then ditto two away games, at defensively obdurate Lille and Bordeaux. The nail-biting will continue as fans hope that at least one of the elements of the squad clicks to stop the club falling behind – at present nothing seems to be working, which intuitively does not seem a situation that will persist, but needs to change and quickly to avoid more upheaval.

Many people hark back to the title-winning season when evaluating Montpellier’s current situation, but the squad is barely the same. That was a perfect storm – and it should be remembered that they came ninth in 2012/13, with a misfiring attack, a nervy but eventually OK 15th in the season where they switched managers halfway through, and were pushing for European competition last season before finally finishing seventh.

They may not be a team of stars, it’s not going to be easy, and anything higher than a mid-table finish would be astonishing, but safety should be achievable (I’d say consolidation, but the club’s transfer dealings mean that looking more than one season ahead is largely pointless). They are trying, which makes the current situation even more depressing – you could see from the anguished expressions as yet another decent effort against Saint-Etienne was blocked, tipped away, or just over, that the lack of goals was getting to them as well. So – if something clicks, if Sanson comes back as he was before, if Yatabare proves himself, if they can stay fit…

…you’ll be a Pailladin, my son.

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