Ligue 1 – 6th day: Marseille, a first hitch without dispute in Strasbourg: “We deserved the defeat”

Olympique de Marseille was once again at the heart of a very pleasant spectacle on Sunday evening. But after closing the 5th day of Ligue 1 with a bang in Lyon, OM concluded the 6th by being sharply brought back to earth in Strasbourg. A narrow defeat (1-0), no huge statistical differences (59% possession for OM, 14 shots to 10 for Strasbourg). And yet, the unanimous post-match analyzes could have pointed to a much larger setback.

“I don’t think it’s a poor performance,” Lilian Brassier immediately announced on DAZN. Surprising, said like that, but revealing of the opposition of the evening. “We came up against a very good team from Strasbourg. We knew it was a dynamic team that was going to cause us some problems.” And that’s saying something. Because before Mason Greenwood created Marseille’s first opportunity of the evening at the very end of the first act, Emmanuel Emegha had time to miss two opportunities (28th, 33rd), and Diego Moreira to open the scoring (40th).

Same story in a more balanced second period, where Emegha had the break point (47th) before Greenwood (55th, 69th) and Neal Maupay (64th) had the equalizer. On Sunday, OM operated in reaction, at best, and were rarely the main player in this meeting, too hampered by Liam Rosenior’s audacious game plan and the high-level individual performances of Strasbourg.

“Congratulations to Strasbourg, they played an intense match, made life difficult for us. They pressed well, played well. We were not up to our level. Intensity either”, added Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg. It is precisely on this point that his coach Roberto De Zerbi emphasized in his analysis. Being beaten tactically or technically, possibly. In impact, no.

“I told the players what I thought: that we deserved to loselaunched the Italian technician. We lost too many duels, so we lost the game. We expected this aggressiveness, football is made up of duels, men against men. When you lose that many, this kind of game goes in favor of the opponent.” But if some of his players, from Elye Wahi to Amine Harit via the entry of Adrien Rabiot, have not had the expected influence, the former Brighton coach will also have something to scratch his head in the next few hours.

For one overall reason: he never found the answer to the Rosenior problem. For another a little more precise: his choice to reverse the positions of Hojbjerg and Geoffrey Kondogbia compared to last week – this time by aligning the Dane in central defense and the former Monegasque in the middle – did not particularly work .

“I preferred to put Hojbjerg behind and not Kondogbia because there were three of us coming out,” he clarified, not wishing to line up two left-handers in central defense while Derek Cornelius was also the starter. “Hojbjerg was the most logical choice,” he insisted at a press conference, also recalling the absences he has to face, including that of Leonardo Balerdi.

Still, persisting in this idea and depriving yourself of one of the best midfielders in Ligue 1 while Ismael Doukouré made life difficult for Amine Harit may come as a surprise. “I play where the team needs it. Personal things, we’ll see afterwards”soberly commented the main person concerned. But clearly his team needed him more in midfield. “Marcelo Bielsa said: ‘We learn in defeat’, and I think we will learn a lot tonight,” concluded De Zerbi. There is indeed material to get back to work.