Four matches, four defeats, no goals scored. The preparation of Olympique Lyonnais for the resumption of the Ligue 1 Championship scheduled in a week looks like a disaster. Saturday, after the new setback, against Crystal Palace (2-0), the Cévennes, visibly annoyed by the performance of its players, dropped a sentence which did not go unnoticed. “The most important thing is to be complete – I hope – against Strasbourg. If by then (laughs) there is a coach in Lyon… what do you want me to tell you!
Words that question just a few days before the resumption of the championship against the Alsatian team. The position of Laurent Blanc, recruited by Jean-Michel Aulas, seems fragile after a turbulent summer.
Finances under surveillance, a climate tense by the acrimonious twilight of the Aulas era, the off-season at Les Gones was particularly tense. July was a tough month for Lyon. The DNCG, the financial policeman of French football, ordered a “supervision of the wage bill” and transfer allowances, de facto limiting its recruitment capacities.
A blow for a club which remains on a disappointing seventh place in the league and will be absent from any European scene for the second consecutive season, unheard of since the mid-1990s.
This warning shot from the DNCG was an opportunity to recall the tense atmosphere in which the handing over of the controls took place between the historic builder Jean-Michel Aulas and the team of the American investor John Textor.
In the midst of this gloomy picture, Blanc has so far tried to hold a positive speech by calling for “not to get upset”: “We all know the situation of the club. She is not easy. You have to be patient, smart and smart and we try to be that.” “We think a lot and a lot more than the others because they are authorized to recruit. We have to do more and better than our competitors”. In fact, there are currently many more starters than rookies.
