I Probably Overreacted With Initially Being Annoyed In A 2-1 Win Over Nantes
2/13/11
We won tonight 2-1 over Nantes which kept us apace in the Ligue 1 ahead of Lyon who trounced Marseille, 3-0. Even though we won, I was initially disappointed with our performance, especially in the 1st half when we wasted a lot of possession by creating hardly any real chances. I guess I shouldn’t have been too hard on the lads but this 2-1 win felt like it should’ve been more like a 4-1 win for us.
I made several changes to the lineup & was forced to bring in Sylvain Monsoreau for the suspended Bayal Sall.
Lineup
Janot
——–Perrin —————- Gueye —————- Monsoreau ————— Goossens
—– Mbia —————- Diego Souza
Donovan ————————————————————– Payet
Gomis ————— Altidore
We started slow & despite dominating possession didn’t have a shot until the quarter-hour mark & didn’t really craft any chances until almost a half hour in.
Match Highlights
15′ Stéphane Mbia has a shot blocked from just outside the area.
23′ John Goossens shoots over from 25 yards out on a freekick from the left.
29′ Mbia shoots over from the top of the box on a cut back pass by Dimitri Payet. The winger had made a good move losing one defender to get into the box.
30′ Payet forces Daniel Aranzubia into a save with a shot from the left side of the box. Payet was found by a good pass by Diego Souza.
42′ Nantes’ Nikola Pokrivač is booked for a foul on Diego Souza.
43′ Bafétimbi Gomis has a shot from inside the box deflected out on the right for a corner.
44′ Monsoreau shoots from the left side following Nantes unable to clear their lines but it’s pushed over the bar by Aranzubia for another corner.
I laid into the boys a little bit at the half & they came out buzzing with a bit of a bee in our bonnets in the second half. We had immediate pressure before which led to our opener but then got lackadaisical leading to Nantes’ equalizer before getting a bit of fortuitous 2nd goal for winner.
46′ Jozy Altidore shoots from the left channel some 25 yards out and it’s knocked over by Aranzubia again for a corner.
47′ 1-0 Papa Gueye; on the ensuing corner following Altidore’s effort, Gueye heads home diagonally from 10 yards out. John Goossens delivered the corner & is starting to rack up the assists from the set pieces.
51′ Eric Djemba-Djemba blazes over the bar from 18 yards out as Nantes started to play well. It seemed our opening goal only served to annoy to Nantes & they started to play much better & in fact, sort of dominated the next 1o minutes or so before Mbia’s winner.
57′ 1-1 Pokrivač; The Croatian fired home from 15 yards out following good work by Montenegrin Stefan Babović on the left wing as Nantes scored the equalizer they had been threatening for the previous several minutes. Babović actually skinned Loïc Perrin pretty good to create a ton of space in the box for the slot back to Pokrivač.
58′ Nantes double substitution: Guillaume Moullec on for Sofiane Choubani & Michael Gravgaard on for Filip Djordjević
59′ Like our 1st goal, our winner came from a corner kick. Diego Souza shoots from the center of the box & it is deflected by the Nantes’ defense out for a corner.
60′ 2-1 Mbia; Our Cameroonian midfielder scored our winner as he notched his 3rd goal in his 4th league appearance for us & 5 goals in 6 total appearances. Gueye again won a header from the corner but his effort hit the bar. Mbia was fortunately on hand to nod home with another header from close range on the rebound. He’s proved quite the terrific signing for me which makes 3 January signing home runs in as many years that I’ve made (Júninho Cappa in ’09, Diego Souza in ’10 & now Mbia in ’11).
60′+1′ Mouhamadou Dabo on for Landon Donovan; immediately following our goal I threw on Dabo at right back for Donovan & bumped Perrin up to right midfield looking to shore up the midfield a bit with a more defensive minded player. It didn’t work initially & Nantes continued to look dangerous on the quick counter.
63′ Djemba-Djemba heads well wide despite being well placed in the center of the box.
64′ Christian Bekamenga shoots well over with an awful effort from outside the box on a ball over the top of our backline that got caught ball-watching.
65′ Yohann Hautcœur on for Gomis; I put another midfielder on & went to a 4-2-3-1 as I pushed Diego Souza up to attacking mid & Hautcœur went to Diego Souza’s spot next to Mbia in the center of the park.
71′ Nantes substitution; Yoann Arquin on for Nicolas Gillet.
72′ Jérémie Janot makes a good save on a low shot by Stefan Babović
77′ Aranzubia saves low following a slight scramble when a Payet cut back pass for Altidore got deflected.
79′ Diego Souza skies over from 15 after being found in a good bit of space by Hautcœur. A player of Diego Souza’s quality should’ve buried this chance for 3-1.
83′ Diego Souza misses again but this time narrowly wide from 30 yards out.
89′ Following consecutive corners by us, Altidore headed against the crossbar on the latter corner before only moments later Perrin also smacking the bar with a hard shot from the middle of the box. However, the ball didn’t find the net & the score remained 2-1 in our favor.
90′+5′ Perrin picked up a knock which forced us to play 5 minutes of an originally schedule 3 of stoppage time but we held out for the victory.
So, one match against Troyes in the league before the big Champions’ League matchup with Chelsea. Unfortunately it seems the slight injury Perrin picked up at the end of tonight’s match will cause him to miss the opening tie against Chelsea.
Ligue 1 Results
Caen 3-0 Le Mans
17′ & 56′ Steve Savidan, 33′ Leandro Augusto
Lyon 3-0 Marseille
17′ Cris, 45′+3′ & 75′ Kim Källström
Ligue 1 Table
| Pos | Inf | Team | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts | |
| 1st | A.S. Saint-Etienne | 24 | 18 | 4 | 2 | 50 | 22 | +28 | 58 | ||
| 2nd | Olympique Lyonnais | 24 | 17 | 4 | 3 | 38 | 12 | +26 | 55 | ||
| 3rd | Paris Saint-Germain | 24 | 11 | 9 | 4 | 33 | 18 | +15 | 42 | ||
| 4th | Toulouse FC | 24 | 11 | 6 | 7 | 34 | 30 | +4 | 39 | ||
| 5th | Olympique de Marseille | 24 | 10 | 7 | 7 | 29 | 19 | +10 | 37 | ||
| 6th | FC Girondins de Bordeaux | 24 | 10 | 5 | 9 | 23 | 21 | +2 | 35 | ||
| 7th | Stade Rennais F.C. | 24 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 31 | 30 | +1 | 34 | ||
| 8th | FC Nantes | 24 | 7 | 12 | 5 | 33 | 25 | +8 | 33 | ||
| 9th | A.J. Auxerre | 24 | 9 | 6 | 9 | 26 | 25 | +1 | 33 | ||
| 10th | LOSC Lille Métropole | 24 | 9 | 5 | 10 | 21 | 26 | -5 | 32 | ||
| 11th | A.S. Nancy Lorraine | 24 | 8 | 7 | 9 | 22 | 24 | -2 | 31 | ||
| 12th | ESTAC | 24 | 8 | 6 | 10 | 24 | 32 | -8 | 30 | ||
| 13th | Racing Club de Lens | 24 | 9 | 2 | 13 | 27 | 37 | -10 | 29 | ||
| 14th | AS Monaco FC | 24 | 6 | 9 | 9 | 30 | 39 | -9 | 27 | ||
| 15th | Stade Malherbe Caen | 24 | 6 | 7 | 11 | 21 | 33 | -12 | 25 | ||
| 16th | Le Mans Union Club 72 | 24 | 5 | 9 | 10 | 27 | 33 | -6 | 24 | ||
| 17th | FC Sochaux-Montbéliard | 24 | 5 | 8 | 11 | 31 | 36 | -5 | 23 | ||
| 18th | FC Metz | 24 | 4 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 31 | -11 | 22 | ||
| 19th | OGC Nice Côte d’Azur | 24 | 4 | 9 | 11 | 24 | 38 | -14 | 21 | ||
| 20th | Stade Brestois 29 | 24 | 4 | 8 | 12 | 21 | 34 | -13 | 20 |
Allez Les Verts! / Allons Les Verts!
