At the bedside of Olympique de Marseille for a week, the new coach Jean-Louis Gasset believes that his team is still “convalescent”, despite its first victory in the championship since the start of the year, won against Montpellier (4 -1) Sunday.
“The team is recovering, and we are not going to look further than the Clermont match. Next Saturday, we will have to go up a notch again, raise the technical slider. In the European Cup (3-1 victory against Shakhtar Donetsk on Thursday, editor’s note), there was only the state of mind, the match was not very nice to watch. This evening (Sunday), we added a little play,” said Jean-Louis Gasset. As during his first days at the head of the Marseille group, Gasset minimized his role in Marseille’s two consecutive victories this week: “When I arrived, the players were at the bottom of the bucket, they had to cling to something. I have a little experience to tell them that they have already managed to get out of their situation.”
“I repeat, but while there is life… I came to help them. I’m not in it for the long term, I’m not a careerist, I’m just helping out. My role was to find the formula that suited them immediately: 1 1=2,” he continued. He nevertheless adopted a playing system where players who had been struggling since the start of the season were able to shine against Montpellier, such as Senegalese attacking midfielder Iliman Ndiaye. “Having worked a little in Africa, he is a player whose potential I knew,” explained Gasset.
“When I arrived, I first had to speak to executives, then I spoke to young people with high potential. They are players of the future, but to express yourself at the Vélodrome, in front of 60,000 people, you need a little click, and I wanted to try (to start him) now,” he added. Regularly targeted by the Vélodrome public, Ndiaye scored and caused a penalty. He came out in the 80th minute to a standing ovation from the Marseille supporters.