OM beat Valenciennes with a very impressive and serious peformance, they now find themselves in second spot just one point behind Lyon.

A stressful final ten minutes cannot hide the fact that OM more than controlled their match at Nungesser. Obviously, Pujol’s goal in the 80th minute gave Valenciennes a certain amount of hope, hope that had previously deserted them. This was down to the fact that OM had completely dominated the match from start to finish and thanks to this Marseille have overtaken Bordeaux, Toulouse and Le Mans to put themselves in second place in the League, just one point behind Lyon.

OM’s success came from the attacking line-up put out by Gerets who decided on a 4-2-3-1 offensive formation, with Ben Arfa in scintillating form over the 75 minutes he spent on the field, scoring a goal which showed all the potential of his technique to top things off.
The attacking four of Koné-Valbuena-Ben Arfa- Niang gave Valenciennes defenders a torrid time right from the off. This was illustrated early on with the first Marseille goal. Taiwo, who looked in great form down his wing, hit a cross in which Valbuena connected with, the midfielder saw his shot hit the crossbar but Koné was on hand to head the ball home (13’, 1-0). OM’s domination was more and more flagrant as the minutes ticked by, even if Tié did manage to graze Mandanda’s crossbar with a long range effort. Domination, which came from the virtuoso performance from Ben Arfa, who showed a few moments of genius. From his wonderful pass to Koné who wasted time in front of goal (37’) to him breaking through the Valenciennes defence and playing in Niang who centred for Koné (43’), he lit up the first half with his inspiration. Valenciennes had a terrible time when faced with him, especially as M’Bami and Cheyrou worked incredibly hard in the midfield to recuperate the ball. Cheyrou popped up at the end of the first half with a powerful volley that went just over Penneteau’s goal (46’+1’). With the amount of chances that they had created, the score could have been a lot heavier going into the break.
Valenciennes did manage to put in a better performance in the second half, with some great movement down the wings that opened up breaches in the Marseille defence, a good example of this was when Saez broke through to shoot (58’). Gerets decided to strengthen up his midfield by bringing on Kaboré in place of Valbuena. This was the first real good period for Valenciennes, even if Ben Arfa had a, valid, penalty appeal turned down (67’). The international then popped up to dampen Valenciennes spirits, after a blistering breakaway, Koné found Niang in the middle of the park, who in turn played in Ben Arfa down the left. The latter then took the ball around Penneteau and slid the ball into the empty net (73’ 0-2). If Pujol’s goal, with just 10 minutes remaining (80’, 1-2), brought Valenciennes back into the match, OM dug deep and scored through Kaboré, his first goal in the League, in stoppage time to finish the game (90’+3’, 1-3). The tough run of games that Marseille are facing in the next few weeks started off in the best possible manner.  

Emmanuel Jean
Photos : Yannick Parienti