Still shell shocked by Dernis’ late goal, Gaël Givet analyses the performance in St Etienne. The OM defender regrets his side’s incapacity to repeat their Anfield performance and emphasises the direness of OM’s league position.

FROM ONE EXTREME TO THE OTHER

It’s part of football. In 3 days we went from one extreme to the other. On Wednesday we had an awesome game against Liverpool and in St-Etienne it was the other extreme. There are few things more infuriating. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. It was a worst case scenario.

DERNIS’ SLIP OF THE KNIFE

Every time you concede you say that it could have been avoided. Especially with the last kick of the match. It was a good goal. We didn’t have a chance to come back. Personally, I’m still in shock because we were well beaten. We were a bit fatigued physically, we lacked a bit of fuel in the tank, but we did what it took to stay in the match against a strong St-Etienne side… only to lose it at the death. It’s tough.

THE LONG BALL TRAP

I have to admit that the pitch at St-Etienne didn’t lend itself to passing on the ground. It was slippery and the ball bounced unpredictably. It’s clear now that we would have been better off trying to play our game than looking for Djibril Cissé with long passes, considering the strength of the St-Etienne central defence. We needed to find other ways around their defence. But we didn’t have what it took to do that.

THE DIFFICULTY OF REPEAT PERFORMANCES

We know we can do better, like we did against Liverpool on Wednesday, but we can’t seem to keep our momentum. Mentally we were up to the task but it wasn’t enough.
We wanted to do it all again, but there were lots of small areas in which we weren’t at the same level. That adds to our disappointment.

THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE AND L1

It’s pretty weird. The Champions League is Europe’s toughest competition and we’ve won both our matches while in the league we’ve only won 2 out of 10 matches. It’s a paradox and sincerely, I can’t explain it.

THE TABLE

WE can’t afford to think about it too much, because it can end up affecting our confidence and stop us from playing openly. We have to do all we can to get out of the relegation zone. That’ll be an important first step. OM has a reputation to protect. We need to start fighting to get out of this hole we’re in.

LAGGING BEHIND

We’re a long way off the pace, we have no choice any more. We say it often but it’s becoming more and more true. We have to hurry up and get some points so our situation doesn’t get any worse. The Lens game is a crunch match for us.

THE LIVERPOOL MATCH IS OUR REFERENCE POINT

Collectively and individually we had a huge match at Anfield. We need to use it as a springboard for future success, even though the opposition changes every time.
It’s certainly our best performance of the season so far, it changed something; we hadn’t played so well as a team before then.

THE POSITIVE

We can see that the quality is there; we have the means for success.

THE 2-WEEK BREAK

it’s a good thing, as we haven’t had much time since our new manager arrived to get used to the new system and how he wants us to play. Now we have 2 weeks to sort ourselves out.
We have a fortnight to recover physically and mentally. And to be ready; after this break, the matches will come thick and fast and the stakes will be even higher than in the match we’ve just played.