As the guest on OMtv’s “L’œil du Coach”, Albert Emon looked back on the Nancy and its lessons before looking at OM’s next trip, to Caen.

OM-NANCY

There were lots of positives in the match but there were negatives as well. I’ve watch the videos a couple of times and we seemed unsure of ourselves throughout the match. Nancy’s set pieces were very strong and we gave away to many free kicks near the area. That was our weakness. But we tried hard and gave our all.
Out of 10 players, we had 3 at 10%, 2 at 80%… Samir Nasri played at only 55% but it was enough to balance our attack. Mamadou Niang had a sore knee after a knock and we took him off as a precaution. We’re trying to take risks but be prudent at the same time. It could have finished 4-2 with Lorik Cana’s header . In the first half we had a lot of chances.

THE TEAM’S PROGRESS

The objective is to have as many men as we can in and around the area. When we have Cissé and Niang’s aerial game and Ziani and Nasri can get into the area, our scoring chances will multiply.
Djibril Cissé works hard for the team, and his success has been deserved. He needs to score and be a key player, he dynamises the attacking line. He is a player with wide scope; he can pass, he has won titles he knows almost everything about football and he knows how to bounce back when the chips are down.
Gaêl Givet and Julien Rodriguez have a similar game. They’re fighters. They just need one look to know which tackle to apply; they’re almost perfect. They are good professionals.

PLAY

The match reassured me but it’s still not good enough because we were moved around in the first half; our lines were split and the players couldn’t communicate with each other because they were too far away. We have a lot of work left to do.

THE TABLE

If we had been 3 or 4 points ahead of where we are now, in the top3, I would have told you after the match that it wasn’t great but that it happens sometimes. But we lost 2 points.

THE LEAGUE

I often talk to the players, notably Samir Nasri, who follows European football very closely. He said French football is very tough; teams like VA, Caen and Strasbourg are really tough to play. These sides have one major concern: getting as many points as they can as fast as possible because they have just been promoted or they had a bad season last year. They’re already in fighting mode, which puts them on even terms with many sides. They can make life very tough.

CAEN-OM

It’s tough to talk to the players about the match, I have only 9 men in training at the moment. The rest are now scattered around Europe and further – Modeste M’Bami is in Japan. I hope to have them back on Thursday in fine form and then to head to Caen. The preparation will consist of 1 training session and some debriefings. We can work with some players who haven’t had so much game time to get them to full capacity and give them a better chance in L1.
It’s tough right now though because we need some stability and calm to work together well. Maybe it’s the kind of difficulty that makes you stronger. We’ve been together for 2 months, they also need to have some new experiences and be competitive with their national teams.