Marseille (AFP)

To make a good team, you need a great goalkeeper and an effective scorer. Marseille, which hosts Saint-Étienne on Sunday, hopes to keep its stern and bow with the return of the real Steve Mandanda and the first goal of Dario Benedetto.

The OM way André Villas-Boas takes shape, but "it's too early" to consider that the two ends of his spine are fixed before the 4th day of Ligue 1.

. The return of Fenomeno

After a season 2018-2019 to forget, Mandana found an athletic silhouette and his six big stops in Nantes (0-0) recalled the prowess that earned him the nickname "Fenomeno".

"It's been on the first three games, he's good, he's decisive, he makes a lot of saves," said Bouna Sarr.

The side, back on the right wing time of recovery of Florian Thauvin, is "happy" for Mandanda, "a historic OM player".

The goalkeeper is the most capped man of the club: he will play against the Greens his 523rd match under this jersey and his 400th in L1.

"It's true that last season, it was not at best, it bothered us," continues the usual side.

He became captain, the world champion "has a lot of experience, we need him," Sarr insists, "he has this aura that if he is good, we too are good".

However, Mandanda was not called back to France by Didier Deschamps for the September matches. "I know what Steve is able to do," said the coach, ensuring that his ex-number 2 was not removed permanently.

"DD" is also, he too, "happy for him to see him at a good level, with a physical athlete high level, even if it will not please him too much", the caretaker sometimes tired to hear talk about his weight.

Villas-Boas "think that in his very good period, he could be called", but does not want to interfere in the choice of the boss of the Blues. "I can not afford to comment," he says.

. The flight of Benedetto

With his goalkeeper, the Portuguese coach tempered the enthusiasm after the good match of Benedetto, author of a nice first goal that opened the winning streak, Nice (2-1), a volley after have himself shifted Sarr, his smuggler.

"It's too early in the season, just as it was too early after the defeat against Reims", 2-0 at the Vélodrome, to bury the center-forward Argentinean, note "AVB".

"It's too early especially because we played in a totally different way in Nice", a 4-2-3-1 in the second half, away from the 4-3-3 that always favors, for the moment, the successor to Rudi Garcia.

Sarr judges Boca Juniors' former goal scorer as "an attacker who keeps the ball well back to the game, he can move the block up, he is generous in the effort and helps us enormously".

First player in the laundry, battler, Benedetto has also been able to recover "the missed penalty to Nantes, we see that he has not been affected more than that," said Sarr.

And then, to really judge his offensive rookie, the famous "grantattakan" that the Velodrome dreams to adulate, after an ephemeral flirtation with Mario Balotelli, it is already necessary that Dario Benedetto be "at its maximum level physically," warns Villas-Boas .

The technician even broadens the debate on the return of Florian Thauvin, who should make his return from injury (ankle), but first on the bench.

"We are looking at the incorporation of Thauvin, he should bring something different to this team by his creativity and ability to finish the actions," notes Villas-Boas.

"Thauvin is an important player for us and can give another dimension to this team," says Villas-Boas. The spine takes shape.

© 2019 AFP