Before the international break, OL host Nantes on Sunday. For this meeting, Pierre Sage should a priori rotate less than against Toulouse (1-2).
With RB, in Décines.
It is not always, if ever, easy to manage a workforce of 26 to 28 members in a football locker room, an ultra-competitive sector. This season, Pierre Sage must maneuver between the need for results and the need to manage each person’s organisms, egos and states of form. If the start of the championship was delicate, these last few weeks have given way to a little more optimism, even if it is all as fragile as OL’s defense.
To try to involve as many players as possible, the Rhone coach must make adjustments in his composition, which is never the same from one confrontation to the next. “To manage frustration, there is both a rotation that takes place in the starting 11, but also with the entrants and for the construction of the group, he explains. And when something is outside of it, it’s not final. The needs of the team are more important than those of the individual.”
Three days of rest at the start of the break
But we saw in Toulouse, despite the 2-1 victory, that upsetting everything was not necessarily a good way to do things. This Friday, Sage clarified that for this 7th day of Ligue 1, the situation would not be the same. “The context between the two meetings is different, he insists. The one against Toulouse was in the middle of a series of five (with Marseille, Olympiakos and Rangers), while that against Nantes (Sunday at 3 p.m.) is located before the truce and three days of rest for those who will stay. This will allow me to react in the very short term.”
The Jura technician did not want to confirm it, but there will a priori be fewer changes to accommodate the people of Nantes. “Thursday’s match was played well by this team for 90% of the game. Indeed, given the context of the following poster, they are likely to dispute it“, he confides. With all the same obligation, that of finding two successors to Clinton Eye and Nemanja Maticboth injured and withdrawn.
Tessmann and Omari back?
Sidelined for the trip to Scotland, Tanner Tessmann et Warmed Omari “will have their chance“, indicated Sage, who however deplores the absences of his two executives. “I don’t like to handle things easily. Indeed, it can be seen as something that makes life easier (due to too large a workforce, Editor’s note)but when you have fewer options, it is on the contrary more difficult, assures the coach. We must be able to envisage different scenarios with fewer resources.“Given the group, he should still find the missing pieces to assemble a competitive 11 against the Ligeriens.
