The sadness behind closed doors, no one was in a hurry to feel it again after the long health break of 2020-2021. Neither the supporters, nor the players, nor the coach Jorge Sampaoli, who regularly repeats how much he feeds on the hottest atmospheres. But the sanction fell after the incidents of the Angers-Marseille and Marseille-PSG matches and it is therefore in front of entirely empty stands, as at the worst hours of the Covid-19 season, that OM will try against Troyes to stand put back in the right direction. Because since its very convincing victory two months ago against Rennes (2-0), the Provencal team does not advance much. All competitions combined, it recorded only two victories over the period, against Lorient and Clermont,three losses and an avalanche of draws (seven).
To discover
Ligue 1 fixtures and results
League 1 standings
First doubts
Thursday, the sanction fell in the Europa League with a 4-2 setback on the lawn of Galatasaray, which leaves only the modest Europa League Conference, third European Cup created this year, as a continental horizon for OM.
This elimination of the C3, certainly in a difficult group, hurts while, for once, the French clubs are performing well on the European scene.
Logically, the first criticisms and the first doubts therefore appear around Sampaoli's work, no more surprised than that.
"
It's normal, it's football, an environment where love lasts little,
" he said Friday at a press conference.
"
Victory or defeat changes the analysis.
It is part of our profession.
We are exposed to analyzes which are sometimes a little amateurish, because there are many other things to analyze in addition to the result.
Some reviews are consistent, some are not.
And I do not attach myself to the favorable comments, because everything changes in the next match
, ”explained the Argentinian technician.
To correct things, there could also be the arrival of a certain type of players that we don't have.
Jorge Sampaoli
Sampaoli knows all the same that his team scores too little in the game and suffers from disappointing individual performances, on the part of supposed executives like Milik, Gerson or Lirola, as well as very successful players at the start of the season and less comfortable today. 'hui, like Luan Peres or Saliba. Again on Friday, the former Argentina coach spoke of two avenues for improvement, on and off the pitch, via the transfer window. “
We have to progress in efficiency in the two areas where we are not sharp enough. We must also continue to work on positioning to look for the free player
, ”he explained first. "
We have a very young, very new group that needs to evolve. To correct things, there could also be the arrival of a certain type of players that we do not have
”, he also estimated.
While a week opens with three affordable matches in eight days (Troyes, Nantes, Brest), Sampaoli would especially like his team to return to the one "
that it was at the start of the season, more convinced of its style and which made very good matches
”. But as nothing is simple at OM, the Argentinian technician did not yet know Friday if he could count on Cengiz Ünder (back) and especially Dimitri Payet, hit last Sunday in the head by a bottle of water thrown by a Lyon supporter. “
It's hard to know how someone is going to feel when they are assaulted every time they go for a corner. Dimitri is important to us. If he is ready, he will play, otherwise he will leave his place to someone,
”summed up Sampaoli,a little disillusioned.
