If OM, now coached by Montpellier Jean-Louis Gasset, replacing Gennaro Gattuso, dismissed from his post on Monday, has largely reduced the tension thanks to its victory against Shakhtar Donetsk (3-1) in the Europa League, not all the embers are extinguished.
“The ‘qualification’ does not alleviate the anger,” warned Thursday, via a banner, the Fanatics, one of the groups of Marseille supporters, all very upset against the players and the managers.
The “qualification” does not alleviate the anger” but it allows Gasset, his assistant Ghislain Printant and his physical trainer, Nicolas Girard, son of René Girard, all from Montpellier, to prepare more calmly for the reception of the Hérault club, 14th in the League 1 with the same number of points as the Nantes barrage (22 pts).
As the coach opposite Michel Der Zakarian said (“we will not be friends on the bench”), the three “Pailladins” will postpone their moods until later, given the situation of OM in the championship is hardly more enviable than that of the MHSC.
Ninth with 30 points, Marseille must imperatively win on Sunday or risk definitively saying goodbye to the European places. Since he has been at the bedside of this large sick body, Gasset has focused primarily on treating the ills of the Bucco-Rhodan club.
“We must win as many matches as possible out of the 12 we have left in L1 and go through as many rounds as possible in the European Cup. (…) Life is like that, as long as there is a breath of hope, we must take advantage of it,” he said after qualifying for the C3 round of 16 against Donetsk.
If the former coach of the Ivory Coast defends himself from any “Gasset effect” after a single victory obtained in less than 48 hours spent with the group, the ex-assistant of Laurent Blanc still brought a clear touch to a team, without solutions since its last victory at home against the red lantern Clermont, on December 17. An eternity.
“Gasset had basic words. We went through the fundamentals. We needed it, it helped us,” explained for example Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who on Thursday became, with his 31 goals scored, the best director in the history of the Europa League ahead of Radamel Falcao.
Words and a change of system. Gasset abandoned the 4-3-3, sterile under Gattuso, for a 3-5-2 in which, by his own admission, the players “felt the best”.
With this system this season, OM was indeed more effective, but with the suspension of Jonathan Clauss on Sunday, and the long-term absence of Amir Murillo, his understudy, it is not sure that Doctor Gasset can to use against the MHSC, which will for its part be handicapped by the absence of its Swiss central defender Becir Omeragic, injured.
To hear the Marseille coach, it doesn’t matter to him at the moment. Against Shakhtar, there was essentially “an awareness” of the players who did “a little more”, he believes. A “state of mind” that must be renewed in the championship.
