Lyon (AFP)

Memphis Depay, Houssem Aouar and Moussa Dembélé are still there, Lucas Paqueta has arrived as a reinforcement: there are traffic jams in attack in Lyon, opposed to Strasbourg on Sunday in Ligue 1 (1:00 p.m.), but the competition must ultimately serve OL , so far too inefficient.

"We are not more numerous in front than before", tempers the coach Rudi Garcia, referring to the departures of Martin Terrier and Bertrand Traoré.

"Better to have too many solutions", positive the technician, before the trip to Alsace which must revive the Lyonnais, lagging behind in the standings (14th, 7 pts) before this 7th day.

Garcia says he "likes offensive, technical, real ball players", such as the Brazilian Paqueta, recruited from AC Milan for 20 million euros.

"He's a very good finish. I'm finding out for real. I always thought he was a great player. Already, he's a left foot. He's creative, generous and has a good passing quality. . He works, goes to the duel, works for the team ", he notes.

"I have no worries about the fact that he will integrate into the game," insists the Lyon coach.

But the arrival of Paqueta forced Garcia to manage an abundance of axial players with also Houssem Aouar, given a start and finally remained a year more, the hope Rayan Cherki or the star Memphis Depay, who showed his motivation to aim on Friday. the L1 podium and bring back OL, deprived of Europe this season, in the Champions League.

- What investment for Depay?

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"There are a lot of talents at OL. I am happy that Houssem (Aouar) has stayed. He is an exceptional player. We have a good team but we have to demonstrate it", admits Depay, referring to the semi-final of C1 lost against Bayern Munich (3-0) in August in Lisbon.

"There is a lot of speed up front and an ability to score, like Moussa Dembélé when he is confident," continued the Dutch international.

But Depay, at the end of his contract on June 30 and too irregular, is he really involved in the Lyon project while he still hopes to leave for the January transfer window in the big club he dreams of, in Barcelona or elsewhere?

It will also include in attack center forward Tino Kadewere, who joined the group in June after being transferred from Le Havre in January for 12 million EUR.

Rudi Garcia will therefore have to be ingenious to get the best out of everyone.

It is up to the coach to regenerate his base eleven, which still looks too much like that of the sluggish last season.

- Pressure on Garcia -

In the spring, the club was 7th when the end of the championship was announced early due to the health crisis, condemning OL to a first season without Europe since 1997. And since the resumption, Lyon has only won. once this season in Ligue 1, against the last, Dijon (4-1).

"It's up to me to solve the equation of playing Aouar, Memphis, Paqueta, Cherki. There are several game systems that we can use. We will see. There is indeed a system that I cannot currently adopt because we have really need to run at full speed to line up a lot of offensive players at the same time on the field, "admits the technician.

"Obviously, we have the ideas. We are working on it in training," he said.

But there is already an emergency, because Lyon is already lagging far behind its rivals and President Jean-Michel Aulas has put the pressure on by declaring on OLTV that he wants to make a point in December.

"Rudi has only one assumption: it is to win again", warned the leader.

© 2020 AFP