Round three of the Europa League and it was another evening of two halves for the French teams. Shift 1 both managed narrow wins, to maintain a decent place in the standings; shift 2 had evenings best described as ‘mixed’, or possibly ‘confusing’.
Monaco 1 – 0 Qarabag
After dropping out of the Champions League, and two 1-1 draws in the Europa group so far, Monaco were rather tetchily looking for their first win. A home tie against the Azerbaijani side Qarabag might have looked easy pickings, but as we learned last year, the Azeri Champions have some moves, and can definitely do stubbornly defensive. That the highlights of this match last only 75 seconds might give an indication of what followed.
There was whistling at half-time as the home side had only managed four shots, and while the defence (Fabinho, Wallace, Carvalho, Raggi) looked OK, the attacking side of things saw ASM struggle to turn good positions into concrete chances. Stephan El-Shaarawy put a header onto the roof of the net, but apart from that, there’s a lot to say for Adetokunbo Aladejare‘s view that “Monaco are a functional unit, barely expressive”. With that in mind, it seemed a bit strange to remove one of the more expressive elements, Bernardo Silva, for the more functional Mario Pasalic just before the hour mark.
Qarabag certainly hadn’t travelled all this way to help Monaco out, despite the absence of serial goal-botherer Reynaldo, edging it on possession and shots, and forcing Danijel Subasic into some tricky saves. Most dangerous was a long-range strike on 66 minutes, which showed their commitment in following up on chances in an uncompromising fashion, as substitute Chumbinho bore down on the keeper seeking to pounce on a loose ball. Shortly after that, Monaco did manage to open the scoring, El-Shaarawy neatly setting up Lacina Traore, who finished well. There was a late heart-in-mouth moment as an 89th minute Qarabag freekick crashed off the wall; captain Rashad Sadygov unleashed a powerful recovery shot, but it deflected off Samuel Armenteros to bounce agonisingly close to the post.
Monaco have their first win, therefore, and with Spurs being, well, y’know, in the other game and losing 2-1 to Anderlecht, ASM top the group on five points. Their next game will be the return tie against Qarabag, which looks set to be a similarly tight and doughty affair, and unfortunately, Thomas Lemar, who was applauded off with ten minutes to go after another good performance, has been ruled out for a month with ankle issues, so another expressive element will be unavailable to them.
Dnipro 0 – 1 Saint-Etienne
In the other early match, the team that got five draws and a loss last season and got knocked out in the play-off the season before so you have to go back to February 2009 to find their last proper Europa win (5-2 on aggregate against Olympiakos in the round of 32) was similarly looking for an upturn in fortunes. They got it, and can you guess who through?
Saint-Étienne c'est Hamouma et dix autres joueurs ce soir.
— Raphaël Cosmidis (@rcosmidis) October 22, 2015
Yes, Romain Hamouma scored (Roux assist) just before half time in another tight encounter, with noticeably terrible pass completion rates for each side. This puts them in a decent position, second on goals scored above Dnipro, but only if they can keep themselves together. Lazio cruised past Rosenborg 3-1 despite being down to ten men from the sixth minute, so ASSE’s next match, at home to Dnipro, will be crucial.
Bordeaux 0-1 Sion
66% possession, 17 shots to 7, 6 on target to 2, 90% pass completion to 76%, opponents who only managed to complete 105 passes… and Wahbi Khazri got sent off for a second yellow with five minutes to go. Given how marginal the rest of the group looks, Liverpool drawing 1-1 against ten-man Rubin Kazan, this isn’t fatal, but it isn’t looking good.
Sion have scored against Bordeaux. Lacroix, sweety.
— FFW (@FrenchFtWeekly) October 22, 2015
Moving on.
Braga 3-2 Marseille
So. After the collapse against Slovan Liberec, the creditable but ultimately unsuccessful fight against PSG, and last weekend’s draw at home to Lorient, another team looking for a win – they’d been six games without one. There was some optimism when the teamsheet came out showing Dja Djedje, Rekik, Sparagna and Mendy in defence, rather than the CB pairing of Nkoulou and Rolando who continue to make OM fans use strong language on social media platforms. But then…
HT: Sporting Braga 0-0 Marseille. The only positive is that we have not conceded.
— MarseilleUK (@MarseilleUK) October 22, 2015
After a cagey first half, the home side looking decent and OM looking click-free (see above), the second half was a weird experience. Braga went ahead just after the hour mark as Ahmed Hassan went one-on-one with a deserted Mandanda and made the smart decision to chip him, and while Marseille pulled themselves together a bit thereafter, with a couple of close chances after a disallowed goal, they were undone by a second from Wilson Eduardo. As tempers flared among the fans, OM did mount a recovery – Alessandrini with a stunning free-kick, then Michy with a scrambled goal. Was it on?
No. Only a minute after the equaliser, Braga’s captain Alan took advantage of Mandanda totally failing to make contact for a punch, and passed into an empty net. OM’s only solace from the evening will be the 96th minute equaliser that ten-man Groningen managed away at Slovan Liberec, to stop the Czechs, in second place in the group, pulling too far ahead points-wise. It will be interesting to see the atmosphere at the Velodrome in the next match as Braga come to visit…
Round four
Thursday 5 November
16.00 GMT / 17.00 CET : Qarabag v Monaco
18.00 GMT / 19.00 CET : Sion v Bordeaux
18.00 GMT / 19.00 CET : Marseille v Braga
20.05 GMT / 21.05 CET : Saint-Etienne v Dnipro