2023-08-22 04:00:37
1. Mourning Bradley Barcola
Held back by the DNCG on the transfer market, Olympique Lyonnais saw its main movements take place in the direction of departures this summer. Long eager to keep Castello Lukeba, the Lyon leaders finally let the central defender fly to RB Leipzig against 35 million euros. This showdown lost against the player trained at the club could well inspired his friend Bradley Barcola, tracked insistently by Paris Saint-Germain. During the first two meetings of Ligue 1, the 20-year-old striker was no stranger to the inefficiency of his team in the opposing camp. Sometimes ghostly, sometimes individualistic, he is in any case far from having displayed the level glimpsed during last half-season. In such a short time, he had compiled seven goals and ten assists. His departure would therefore be an obvious loss for OL, while no substitute seems to have the level to take his place on the right wing. However, losing Barcola – which is definitely no longer head to Les Gones – would bring a long-awaited check to the Rhône and would push the club to recruit to fill a position that has been relatively lacking for many years. With any luck, a young nugget will still come out of the hat or John Textor will find a hard-hitting right-winger in one of his 36 satellite clubs.
2. Accompany Laurent Blanc
After the debacle at Groupama Stadium against Montpellier (1-4), Laurent Blanc showed a gray face that he has been dragging for many months in Lyon. Asked by Prime Video about what should be changed within the club, the coach replies tit for tat: “The coach. After a few seconds of hesitation, he persists: ” Why not. Maybe we need to change the coach. » Since his arrival on the Lyon bench last October, “The President” uses irony at each moment of crisis, but seems to go through them more and more disillusioned. The job of coach is grueling and the one who had not officiated in Europe for six years seems as much at the end of the line as during his last hours on the PSG bench. To accompany him as well as possible, one would be tempted to advise the Rhone board to call Jean-Louis Gasset as reinforcements to find the role of faithful assistant to Laurent Blanc. Currently coach of Côte d’Ivoire, he also recently passed through Saint-Étienne and Bordeaux and should therefore be more up to date with certain tactical innovations than his friend. Laurent Blanc sometimes does not seem aware of no longer being in 2015, which Strasbourg and Montpellier have understood particularly well about the transition phases. Otherwise, OL can always accompany Laurent Blanc towards the exit.
3. Take it down a notch
Already noticeable last season, Olympique Lyonnais is an anomaly in a Ligue 1 dominated by transitions. While RC Lens qualified for the Champions League or Le Havre moved up the elite thanks to the perfect mastery of these crucial moments, Lyon continued to suffer. Against Strasbourg, Nicolas Tagliafico had deserted his camp during the second Alsatian goal while, against Montpellier, it was Duje Ćaleta-Car, Jeffinho or Ainsley Maitland-Niles who had to contain, in vain, the opposing counter-attacks. Of the six goals conceded at the start of the season, four come directly from these situations. Often fifty meters from their goal, without being more dangerous in front, the Lyonnais thus gratify us with some tasty but ineffective recoil-brakes.
Like their defence, the Lyon supporters would do better to go down a notch on their scale as well. With their seven consecutive championship titles in the 2000s, they must now stop convincing themselves of being part of the French gratin. Significantly far from Olympique de Marseille or Stade Rennes, they could stop asking for the head of the slightest coach in office or wanting to attract all possible players since the former are there by default and the latter are no longer interested in this project. .
4. Bet everything on Rayan Cherki
To great ills, great remedies. The Bleuets playmaker must show that he has the shoulders to finally carry his training club. If the departure of Bradley Barcola is confirmed, Rayan Cherki and Maxence Caqueret would be the only two young executives from the Rhone training center. A heavy responsibility as Anthony Lopes, Corentin Tolisso and Alexandre Lacazette make it possible to represent the older generation passed by Tola Vologe. Beyond the identity factor, it is above all at the sporting level that Rayan Cherki must finally pass this milestone which would do Olympique Lyonnais a world of good.
We have the impression of seeing the number 10 and his beard for many years when he has just celebrated his twentieth candle. Subjected to the insistent gaze of many supporters and observers of young Lyonnais shoots, he could not grow at his own pace and finds himself behind certain players of the same age, including Bradley Barcola and Castello Lukeba. Being alone can benefit him in his progression and in his personal quest to become one of the best players in the world. Of course, it can also burn (permanently?) his wings. When the spotlight is solely on him, Rayan Cherki can tend to a few sins of individualism and superfluous gestures. But that’s also what makes it so charming.
5. Do not be inspired by the Saint-Etienne neighbor
There are many historical clubs that get stuck before falling heavily, but Olympique Lyonnais is lucky to be able to take an example by looking only 62 kilometers away. Weighed down by a passive presidency and a hardly more invested workforce, AS Saint-Etienne plunged into Ligue 2 after years of hardship. The most optimistic fringe of Greens supporters who thought that an immediate rise in the elite would be done in a snap of the fingers are damn planted. Today, nothing says that Sainté will not last forever in Ligue 2.
What if OL’s real goal at the end of the season was not simply to prevent the next derby from being played on a Saturday at 3 p.m. on beIN Sports with Robert Malm on commentary?
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