The hero of Anfield discusses the preparation for the Lens match and Eric Gerets’ philosophy. “We have to redeem ourselves at home,” he said, still waiting for OM’s first league win of the season at the Vélodrome.
A charismatic figure in the OM side since his exploits in Liverpool, Mathieu Valbuena is the perfect choice to discuss the first few weeks of the Gerets regime. Having gone from a substitute to a habitual starter, he notes: “It’s serious, rigorous stuff with 4 training sessions a day for the last 2 days, for example… If we work on all areas of our game, the work will pay off. The manager has put his faith in us and we’re sticking to his philosophy but there’s still a lot of progress to make and problems to correct. We can’t afford to play a good game then a bad one any more. But I’m not worried, we’re a quality side.”
Now that the win in England and the bitter defeat in St-Etienne are in the past, the international break has given the Olympiens 2 weeks in which to get some serious work done. “The video session after St-Etienne gave us a chance to see what wasn’t working. He emphasised the importance of tactical discipline as teams who come to the Vélodrome always pack their defence and try to hit on the counter,” explains Valbuena ahead of the visit of Lens this weekend.
“He learned a bit more about us in the friendly against Bastia; he had a chance to see the whole squad. Now it’s simply technical and physical work for the 2 or 3 days before the match. He’s drilled us tactically as well, in terms the of discipline we have in training and need to reproduce in matches,” he added.
“Revenge to be taken for last year”
The message is often repeated in the words of the manager and the players: reproduce in matches the good intentions from training – an imperative for the Lens match, along with the necessity for the Olympiens to open their account at the Vélodrome in the league this season. “We’re hoping for a warm welcome. We need support right now,” says the former Libourne man. “We’ve lost too much time, and too many points. From now on we have to win lucidly and rigorously – i.e. repeat what we achieved in the Champions League, repeat it over and over again, starting with Lens. We have to get our league campaign really up and running, starting on Sunday against Lens.”
OM’s last home win was against Besiktas (2-0) in the Champions League and Lens was one of the few teams to win in Marseille last season (0-1). “We have to take revenge for last season. We have to redeem ourselves at home, because we’ve failed here so far, whereas last season this was our fortress. We can’t have teams coming to Marseille and taking the 3 points and shouting and singing in the locker room. It’s not on.”
