Raymond Domenech's FC Nantes is on the worst series in its history with twelve games without a win.
But it would be absurd to see an echo with Knysna: this task on the Nantes coat of arms is only partly attributable to the former coach of the Blues who took control, in early January, of a ship already in sinking.
Since then he has been scooped.
Domenech's personal record during his four outings in Nantes attests to a "less worse" for lack of a slight better: three draws and one defeat.
Inside the club, the Domenech transplant has yet taken.
“For a few days, the players were a little wary because if they knew his name, a large majority had never seen him train, explains a club observer.
But they were quickly reassured when he spoke to them only about football, tactics and placement.
Where his predecessor, Christian Gourcuff, worn out by his time on the Nantes bench, was increasingly stingy with his words in front of the troops, Domenech's verbal fluency on the contrary served to gain acceptance.
And his relationship with President Waldemar Kita is described as “straightforward and straightforward”.
One of the first tasks of the neo-Nantais was to renew the dialogue, broken under the Gourcuff era, with the technicians of the training center.
"Some were expecting a
head of c ...
and they saw a simple and open guy arrive," said a member of the club.
He asked to integrate all the young people from the reserve into the club's health bubble, in order to be able to gauge them and oppose them to the professional group.
"What he likes is taking a workforce and making it progress"
For the first time last week, a match between pros and reservists was organized.
Domenech would also have liked to attend the meetings of the reserve team but the N2 championship has been stopped since October 24.
Instead, she can face other pro club reserves.
Domenech was able to watch the matches against the reserves of Lorient and Angers to see which young people he could count on.
The other big surprise of Domenech's first month is that he regained feelings he had forgotten for almost 27 years and his last club game in June 1993. “He realized how much his thing was club coach. more than a coach, says one of his relatives.
What he likes is taking a squad and making it progress.
In selection, if a guy is not good, you replace him.
There, he knows that apart from a few adjustments to the winter transfer window, he will do with what he has.
And he loves it.
He is really happy every day.
"
Happy but not blissful.
In the complicated situation of the club in the league (17th), he wants his players to revolt.
“For a month, he was pretty nice to be accepted, says one.
But, there, he will begin to harden his management a little and remind his players of a truth: his arrival eclipsed the bad results in the media since January.
But if things don't get better, we will quickly repeat that the problem in Nantes is not the coach.
He doesn't feel any pressure.
It's not a joke, he really came back for fun.
"