Despite the draw at home to Lorient, OM showed that the positive spiral which has been theirs since the start of the year has not come to a halt. Unanimously, the OM squad want to wipe away this poor result as of Thursday, against Benfica.
No, this draw is not a break on their run. As one, the OM players do not want to believe that this the end of their great run of five victories, but more than anything a very promising start to the year. When you look at the content of the match, you cannot say that they are wrong. Dominating the match and having the victory at the tip of their feet on a number of occasions, the Marseille side were victims of bad luck.
“12 chances, 18 shots of which 10 were on target”: Didier Deschamps reminded everyone at the end of the encounter of the “frustration” felt in view of the performance put in by his players. On Sunday night, OM were cruelly lacking in efficiency, something that hadn’t been the case since the start of January, when Niang and his team-mates managed to find the back of the net from half chances. “We have won matches with fewer chances” stated the coach in the corridors of the Vélodrome. A lack of efficiency to which can be added the performance of Fabien Audard, the Lorient keeper that Didier Deschamps encountered during his time at Monaco put a dampener on, the atmosphere in the OM dressing room. “Some of the players were really down”, said Édouard Cissé.
A draw which hasn’t broken the collective momentum
The disappointment, shared by the entire squad, was "softened" by the result of Bordeaux-Montpellier (1-1). “A weekend which saw nobody take any type of advantage”, states Cissé. A status-quo at the top of the table which could leave a number of regrets. The upcoming challenges will however deprive the OM squad of the “luxury” of dwelling on this disappointment.
Didier Deschamps’s men want to learn the lessons from this draw. Benoît Cheyrou wants to “use this match against Lorient as a lesson in efficiency and realism”. It should be a dress rehearsal for the European match in which “each goal and each mistake will cost dearly”. Without ignoring the qualities of this Lorient side, Marseille are expecting a difficult match against Benfica on Thursday at the Luz stadium.
So as not to break this collective momentum, the coach will surely have stated to them that this draw has only “slowed down” the OM run, as this was stated one after the other by Cheyrou then Cissé. All that the OM squad needs to do now is to put their foot back on the accelerator. “We need to continue playing our game, not concede any goals and stay as rigorous as possible”, said Cissé as his attempt at a recipe. The former Besiktas player, who is as discreet as ever when talking about OM’s ambitions: “We will just keep plodding along the track as we have been”. A track which could turn itself into a motorway if OM managed to prolong the pleasure during this month of March.
