Hardly reassuring on several interventions Sunday, as here against the Nice captain Dante, Jessy Moulin was strongly supported by his trainer Claude Puel.

JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK -

AFP

  • Beaten in recent weeks by Rennes and Lens, the Greens this time suffered the law of OGC Nice (1-3), Sunday in the Cauldron.

  • This black series led to the collapse of ASSE in Ligue 1, from a surprise leader status after four days to a place of 10th after these three setbacks.

  • Romain Hamouma warns his partners: “We need awareness of the group”.

    20 Minutes

    sets out the grounds for hope for this extremely young Saint-Etienne team.

At the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium,

Has a European club already regularly called in the elite to six players from its training center who do not even have their name on their jersey?

With Claude Puel, it's almost as if the PSG-OM of the minots in 2006 took place every week in Saint-Etienne.

Aimen Moueffek, Lucas Gourna, Maxence Rivera, Abdoulaye Sidibé, Tyrone Tormin and Saïdou Sow were all born between 2001 and 2003, and their express learning of Ligue 1 is sometimes painful this season.

This is the case for the last named, promising Guinean of 18 years at the origin of the goal gag of the weekend in Ligue 1, Sunday during the Stéphanoise defeat against OGC Nice (1-3), the third of rank.

Euphoric leader of the championship after four days, with the added bonus of his first success after 41 years of famine at the Vélodrome (0-2), the Greens are now back in line (10th with three points ahead of 17th).

The unplanned and late departure of the impressive Wesley Fofana, the last minute failures in recruiting William Saliba and M'Baye Niang, as well as the serious injury to the right knee of Yvann Maçon, all for three weeks, are are they so many warning signs of a season as difficult as the previous one (17th at the premature end of L1)? 

20 Minutes

has targeted five main reasons for hope.

Executives will quickly come back

Timothée Kolodziejczak, Yvan Neyou, Wahbi Khazri (suspended), plus Mathieu Debuchy, Yvann Maçon, Gabriel Silva, Charles Abi and Arnaud Nordin (injured) all failed at ASSE on Sunday against Nice.

Eight possible holders, who will all very quickly be able to return to Claude Puel's group, except Yvann Maçon,

out

for the rest of the season.

Enough to revive an extremely young group and in need of benchmarks, which wandered during most of the first period on Sunday.

Not worried.

ASSE when it has to do without 8 potential holders, loses its intentions and lowers its head, is a bottom team of L1.

But, when she finds a competitive eleven and the attitudes of the summer, she has arguments.

It's up to the Greens to be able to do it again.

- Faustine (@ Faus4ine) October 18, 2020

Romain Hamouma is already putting everyone on alert

This is why Romain Hamouma, one of the rare captains present against Nice, had a very clear message to convey to the media after this new quack at home.

"Three defeats, that is not possible, it is very important to react", urges the Stéphanois attacking midfielder, before continuing:

At the moment, we are in the reaction.

We wait to be led to the score to wake up and let go.

There was some positive in this match but we can't be satisfied with that.

It takes group awareness.

We're young, but that's not everything.

You have to realize that Ligue 1 is going very quickly and that we can go down quickly.

It's very frustrating because at the start of the season, we hurt the opponent thanks to our pressing.

We have to make differences collectively, there is no individuality with us that can achieve exploits.

"

Pique, Denis Bouanga will come back strong

Author of 12 goals and 5 assists last season, Denis Bouanga (25) could be that individuality.

But despite his two achievements since this summer, the Gabonese international is struggling to confirm.

So that despite the cascade of packages, Claude Puel made him start on the bench on Sunday before bringing him into play at the break, in place of a Jean-Philippe Krasso (ex-Epinal in N2, 4th division ) invisible.

“Denis is an important player for us and I expect a lot more from him in what he can bring us in terms of efficiency and intensity,” sums up the former Nice coach.

In view of his intrinsic qualities which are magnificent, I simply count on him at a much better level.

“Claude Puel has no equal when it comes to stinging some of his players, and Denis Bouanga's return to school turned out to be convincing on Sunday.

Very interesting for his first appearance in the green jersey, Panagiotis Retsos has a good profile of revelation of the season of Ligue 1. - JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK / AFP


Panagiotis Retsos will stabilize the defense

THE great Saint-Etienne satisfaction of the day is certainly Panagiotis Retsos.

This 22-year-old Greek defender has already been able to prove his versatility, for his first tenure, by playing in a three-way defense for nearly 30 minutes, before switching to the left side and then central defender to a four-way defense.

As tonic as he is technical and rigorous in the duels, the former Bayer Leverkusen has all the right things, as Claude Puel rightly savored.

He has given us a lot, he's calm, he has a lot of serenity because he's good technically.

He only did one training with the group.

And despite this complete ignorance of its partners, it was very interesting for a first.

"

Claude Puel is totally consistent in his choices

Claude Puel clearly wants his team to play ball and especially to do a lot of pressing.

Even in a day without, with an ultra-decimated team, we saw his ASSE (almost) capable of completely unexpectedly reversing the course of the match against the Aiglons.

In the choice of men, the 59-year-old technician is also very consistent, in particular continuing to rule out the undesirable Ryad Boudebouz and Stéphane Ruffier.

And this by fully assuming the questions around the new number 1 in the goals Jessy Moulin, even when he misses his recovery in the axis on the goal of Pierre Lees-Melou (0-1, 8th) and he suffers the famous blunder by Saïdou Sow (0-2, 30th).

Do not look, Me Puel is unplayable: "Why would his responsibility be engaged?

On the second goal, it's a gag goal but Jessy has nothing to do with it.

And on the first, I did not find that he was on the spot either.

Suffice to say that it would take a sacred “kepaisation” from Jessy Moulin in the coming weeks for Stéphane Ruffier to resume the hope of finding the land with the Greens.

Sport

ASSE-OGC Nice: The Aiglons took advantage of gifts from Moulin and Sow to win in Saint-Etienne… Relive this success (1-3) not so mastered with us

Sport

ASSE-OGC Nice: Between “very good performance” and “doubts”, Patrick Vieira's Aiglons remain confusing

  • Claude puel

  • Sport

  • ASSE

  • Saint Etienne

  • OGC Nice

  • Soccer

  • Romain Hamouma