Here is Franck Haise's reaction after the Gym's draw in Montpellier this Sunday (2-2). Disappointed with the outcome of the meeting, the Nice coach retained the positive glimpsed in the offensive animation as well as the ranking of the Aiglons, 6th after the last championship match of the year 2024.
Coach, how do you analyze this end of the match, which saw Montpellier equalize while you were leading?
We restarted Montpellier for the last quarter of an hour. I felt like their moment had passed. Their goal comes from a high free kick for us, after an 80 meter transition, which we can manage better. We have a feeling of frustration at not having held the 2-1 at that moment because I think we were on the right end. Montpellier had other opportunities at the end of the match. We have to accept and take this point, even if I would have preferred, and I thought, that we were going to hold on to this victory.
Le Gym will spend the break in 6th place. Does this reflect this first part of the season in the championship? Is this a satisfactory ranking for you?
We started with four points taken from the first four matches. I would have liked to win today, that would have given us 22 points over the last 11 games, with an average of 2 points per game, which would have been a very good average. We were missing a little bit. Considering all the events that we have experienced since the start of the season and even more over the last few months, we are satisfied with it. We still had ten players absent, I played players who only had one or two training sessions in their legs… Our ranking in the championship, I think we have to be satisfied with it and be satisfied with it. say it's not bad. I tell myself that if we are sixth in these conditions, hoping to find a denser workforce in 2025, we will perhaps be even better.
Tom Louchet is out injured, do you have any news?
He felt a contracture reaching behind his thigh. I hope it's not something very serious, but from the moment you smell something like that, you know it's not going to fix itself in 4-5 days. I think that still leaves us with one less player, at least in the short term.
We felt some of your players were worn out, notably Tanguy Ndombele. Did you feel tired?
It's not a question of fatigue, because he has strong moments in the match. I see what you're referring to, but it's mostly his body language. Everyone has their own. He is capable of gaining momentum during moments of the match, but today, to go to the end of a match or to string together several is clearly not possible. That's why I played him for just 25 minutes on Thursday. I think he was able to do 75-80 today. Maybe with a different bench, I would make different choices with changes a little earlier sometimes. This time, I had already taken two changes. Tanguy, he will gain strength. He has played four matches in recent weeks. Before, he had been bothered physically. We're going to try to get him back on track.
To look forward to the match against Corte, can you imagine giving Maxime Dupé some playing time?
I have all the answers in mind. I will already analyze this match before discussing the Cup match starting tomorrow. I know what I want to do with the team and with the goalkeepers.
Are returns expected? We didn't necessarily expect to see Melvin Bard this Sunday…
Jonathan (Clauss) had two sessions and 25 minutes of matches in his legs over the last three-four weeks. Melvin (Bard) did Saturday's practice. He wasn't 100% but there was no risk of pain. I asked him to come with us, telling him that we would probably need him for 15-20 minutes. It was a little more. If the staff was full, I probably would have let him work from home.
On the positive side, there were some good things in the first half and in particular two goals from shots outside the area. These are risks that we have rarely seen lately…
Beyond the two strikes, in the little that we worked on Saturday and the 10 minutes of tactics on offensive animation, we wanted to put extra around their double pivot. This is what happened, we always had free players around their two midfielders. The idea was then to verticalize either by finding a player who launches, or by striking. We scored two nice goals from strikes, but above all, they correspond to what we hoped to achieve. It’s part of the evening’s satisfaction.
