Lille – Stade Rennais: Rennes as harmless as they are defensive

Lille – Stade Rennais: Rennes as harmless as they are defensive

Busy defending well, Stade Rennes forgot to attack against Lille, and never managed to appear dangerous, once again this season.

But what will they be able to do with this ball? That's what we asked ourselves for 90 minutes once again, Sunday before the Stade Rennes match. At the end of a third defeat in a row, the Breton club surpassed itself in its harmlessness on the outskirts of the opponent's area. After ending the ignoble encounter against Toulouse with a shot on target, the SRFC almost repeated the performance but Jota came to take a floating ball with a volley from the right, far from worrying Lucas Chevalier who until now had not saw Rennes only one strike: a tasteless free kick from Gronbaek.

This is where Stade Rennes is offensively, author of its worst start to the season since 2002-2023 with 11 points in 12 games. With 5 balls hit in the opposing area in 97 minutes. With the worst total of expected goals (0.58xG) in the 5 major European championships this season for a match according to Opta, a performance accomplished with a Lille whose anniversary should undoubtedly not be too spoiled by this stat. Rennes was able to celebrate another anniversary, that of the two months without a goal from one of its two attackers: Arnaud Kalimuendo and Amine Gouiri.

Bonus to defense… until conceding a goal

However, listening to the positive post-match speeches, everything seems to have gone for the best or almost for the Rennais. Steve Mandanda recognized a global situation “complicated”but retained “the best”hear here defensively. “We were a little more solid, we conceded very few chances. Now we know that we have to improve in a lot of areas”analyzed the goalkeeper when Jorge Sampaoli highlighted a match ” balance “et “defensive order” of his team.

This was the primary mission displayed by the new coach, wanting to solidify his team, to have ” control “to regain confidence through ” security “. It was almost won against an uninspired Lille team (as the statistics show) and which only had to manage after opening the score against a Stade Rennes as harmless as possible.

The defensive objective of Sampaoli's Rennes is logical given the club's current situation, but with the first goal conceded it is the main weakness of this group which emerges very quickly: the use of the ball. And with 306 minutes without scoring now, Rennes will have to work on this aspect of their game next week, the first with their entire group for Sampaoli.