Marseille plays against Le Havre and consolidates its second place

The transition to the new year has not stopped the momentum of Olympique de Marseille. Serious and above all infinitely superior to its opponent, OM quietly won, Sunday January 5 in the evening, against Le Havre (5-1) to achieve a great operation in the French championship.

We had almost forgotten that before losing on Sunday in Qatar against Paris SG during the Champions Trophy (1-0), Monaco had already lost to the Parisians before Christmas (4-2), in an advanced match of this 16^e day of Ligue 1. And since Lille could not do better than a draw (1-1) against Nantes on Saturday, it was the Marseillais who were the big beneficiaries of the weekend. They take, alone, second place in the ranking, 7 points behind PSG, but three lengths ahead of Monaco, and five ahead of Lille and Lyon.

Before a series of probably more complicated matches – against Rennes, Strasbourg and Nice in Ligue 1 and against Lille in the Coupe de France – the Marseillais also confirmed that they now had real certainties in the game, combined with favorable results since they remain on a run of five victories and a draw between championship and Cup.

Sunday, they left the first strike of the match to Le Havre, with Ilyes Housni, who did not score (7^e). But then there was nothing left for the Normans, 17^e in the ranking and relegated. As expected, OM confiscated the ball and worked to circulate it in front of the double wall installed by Didier Digard in front of Arthur Desmas' goal.

Case heard at break

The Le Havre coach's project was undoubtedly to see the building hold up to the end but the whole thing was not very solid and after a series of more or less dangerous attempts – Amir Murillo at 10^e minute, Adrien Rabiot at 14^e et 16^eValentin Rongier at 18^e or Mason Greenwood at 23^e –, everything gave way.

The first to find the opening was Rongier, who deceived Desmas with a nice shot from the right at the entrance to the area (1-0, 25^e). The former Nantais player helped unlock the match and forced Le Havre to venture a little higher. With these few extra spaces, Roberto De Zerbi's players were able to push their attacks a little further and scored two more times before the break.

At 39^e minute, the young Bilal Nadir (21 years old) who widened the gap with a nice cross shot from the left into the area (2-0). Then Neal Maupay, always a clever goal hunter, found the target with a header (3-0, 43^e) and celebrated like a dart thrower.

At the break, the matter was settled but Marseille continued to play their well-regulated football. Maupay was thus twice more close to the goal before giving way to Elye Wahi.

As the Marseille evening was almost perfect, the former Montpellier also scored, on a gift pass from Greenwood, and thus gave himself a nice ovation from the Vélodrome, which surely did him good after half a year -difficult season (4-0, 66^e).

An ovation for former Marseillais André Ayew

“Today, even if there was a big team up front, we didn’t show the face of a team that deserves to be in Ligue 1”scathed Le Havre coach Didier Digard at a press conference, who regretted that his team had shown “really too little” of things.

At the end of the match, Ulisses Garcia increased the score on his first ball (5-0, 75^e) and the Vélodrome public was not even upset about the reduction of the gap by Le Havre, because the latter came from Andre Ayew (5-1, 85^e). The Ghanaian, a child of the club, received a standing ovation, and his goal ultimately displeased only one person: OM coach Roberto De Zerbi.

“The goal conceded bothers me a little. Because we must think that 5-0 or 5-1 is not the same thing. And we have to make the other teams understand that scoring a goal for us is difficult. But we had made a lot of changes and we had lost a little order”explained the Italian technician. “That said, we had a great match. We are also improving against low blocks. You have to learn to understand these matches, they are not harder but different. Against Monaco or Lille, these are vertical matches, with large spaces. In matches like today, you need more patience, move the ball around, don't force passes.”nevertheless appreciated De Zerbi.