Monaco-OM: "We no longer have the right to make mistakes", notes Valère Germain

His 150th match with OM coincided with the pitiful defeat against Lens (0-1).

Astonished by the lack of a start from his team, Valère Germain, at the height of his 30 years, refuses to fall into an unnatural pessimism.

If the arrival of the Pole Milik seems, for him, the promise of a further reduced playing time, he is ready to take advantage of every second offered.

Man of his word, the dad filled with a little Raphael, 4 and a half months old, did not walk away on the pretext of a sporting situation incompatible with an interview.

For thirty minutes, he scanned the news before Saturday's trip to Monaco (Canal +, 9 p.m.), his former club.

Is OM in crisis?

VALÈRE GERMAIN.

I don't know if we are in a crisis, but our current situation is not simple.

We are behind on our summer goals.

We had two jokers with these games late to get closer to the podium.

By losing against Lens, we clearly burned one.

From now on, we no longer have the right to make mistakes by the end of the championship.

Do you think, like Steve Mandanda, that there is a lot to change?

If the solutions were obvious, we would obviously apply them.

Even when everything was going well in the league, the group might not have had so much confidence.

The first failures in Rennes or Angers had an impact on our individual and collective performances.

It is up to us to find the means to get out, all together, from this bad patch.

Does this group lack character?

I do not believe.

The squad hasn't changed much from the runner-up last season.

The leaders, those who carry the voice, are always there.

It would just take a benchmark match, a click, to revive.

It goes, perhaps, already by a greater collective desire.

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Do the players continue to support André Villas-Boas?

We're all behind him.

We are several to arrive at the end of the contract in June.

The same goes for the staff.

We don't know what the future will hold.

Until then, we're all in the same boat, with the common desire to go find something good and eventually leave the club in a comfortable position.

Whatever one can say or think about it from the outside, the group continues to live well.

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How did you welcome, this Wednesday against Lens, the insulting banners displayed by the supporters at the Orange Vélodrome?

Even if it is never pleasant to read, we can understand them.

This is their only way today to express their dissatisfaction and frustration.

We have already suffered from their anger in the past.

Let's know how to reverse the course of things and make them smile.

You are combative and hold a speech tinged with optimism.

Is it just communication?

Not at all.

We are not going to give up or complain about our points of delay and say that the season is already over.

We are not allowed to react like this when we wear this jersey.

You have to move.

Everything goes very quickly in football.

Clubs that precede us are likely, in turn, to have a bad time.

Qualifying for the Champions League still seems possible to me.

What can you expect from the trip to Monaco, one of the fit teams in 2021?

We won against Louis-II in the last two seasons.

I do not forget, either, the correction received in 2017 (6-1).

This team is rich in talents and is part of a great dynamic.

We will have to show something else in the game than these days to bring back a positive result.

Personally, how do you judge your season?

I don't have a lot of playing time. In Ligue 1, I only started three times.

I shot three times for as many goals.

Even if the numbers don't mean much, there is efficiency at least!

It's important to score for a striker and to have good stats.

Sometimes I was lined up on one side to meet the needs of the coach.

I do my best even if sometimes it turns out to be tricky.

We will take stock at the end

Have you never regretted having joined Marseille in the summer of 2017?

Never.

Since my arrival, I have known good times and others more complicated.

I remember them all.

Would I have done better or worse elsewhere?

I do not know.

I don't like to flaunt my moods.

My only small frustration lies in the fact that I have rarely been able to play the role of central striker for which I was recruited.

Do you have the feeling that you are being misused on one side?

Everyone knows it, I prefer to play with another striker, or even alone at the top.

I better express my qualities there.

I proved it in Nice, then in Monaco.

The coach has chosen Dario

(Editor's note: Benedetto)

since the summer of 2019. That's how it is.

I respect this decision.

I'm not going to go see him to complain.

The team comes before my personal case.

Do you view Milik's recruitment as a disavowal?

It is not in my nature to give in to some form of demobilization.

Even if I am offered ten or fifteen minutes, I give everything.

When Mario Balotelli joined us just two years ago, I was promised the bench.

It was quite the opposite.

At the beginning, especially, our duo worked well.

Maybe it will be the same or I will hardly play anymore.

With Monaco, your former club, you are the last to have beaten Paris in Ligue 1 in 2017. Do you still make PSG the favorite for the title?

PSG seem to have a little less room.

He has had many injuries since the start of the season.

If he is spared more in the coming months, it seems difficult to me, given his potential, to deprive him of the title.

There are similarities with the year of the Monaco title, but we had achieved an exceptional course with 17 wins and 2 draws in the return phase.

Is another club able to do as well this year to get ahead of Paris?

I do not know.

Are we not too demanding with your ex-teammate Kylian Mbappé, who has appeared a little behind in recent weeks?

In the game he's a little worse off, but he's just 22 years old.

We tend to forget it.

He is 12 goals in 16 Ligue 1 games. These are still excellent statistics.

Kylian is an exceptional player.

It creates a lot of expectation.

He is so strong.

It will bounce back.