Ligue 1 Review | Lyon’s season threatens to go off the rails
Ligue 1 Review | Lyon’s season threatens to go off the rails A familiar sinking feeling embraced Olympique Lyonnais on Sunday afternoon as they watched their narrow lead over AS Monaco evaporate in a second-half blitz. The 2-1 defeat would mark an entire month since Lyon’s 13-game winning streak was brought to an end by RC Strasbourg Alsace on the 22nd of February. Since the defeat to Strasbourg, Lyon haven’t won any of their following seven matches in a nightmarish run that has seen them eliminated from the Coupe de France by RC Lens and the UEFA Europa League by Celta de Vigo.
Even their grip on fourth place and their aspirations for a podium finish and with it automatic qualification to the Champions League are under threat. Following the weekend’s results, Lille are level on points with Lyon, while Monaco sit only a point behind. Mathieu Louis-Jean, the Lyon technical director, fumed in the mixed zone after the latest loss, “ We can’t continue like this .
” Only he wasn’t talking about the slip in performances that have plagued the squad in the last month. His ire, as well as that of the Lyon players and backroom staff, was directed instead at the referee. Lyon rage against the (absence of the) machine Lyon believed that Monaco’s second goal, a penalty converted by Folarin Balgoun, after Maghnes Akliouche was brought down in the box by Corentin Tolisso, shouldn’t have stood.
They argued that Endrick had been fouled in the build-up to the goal and that the referee, François Letexier, should have consulted the pitchside monitor. Tolisso would say of the incident, “ I don’t want to say there’s anything against Lyon, but when you see all the refereeing errors, right from the first few matches… We have to fight against ourselves and perform better, but if we also have to fight against the referees, it’s going to become very difficult . ” There should be a worry that, within the internal furore of the decision, the wider problem facing Lyon will be lost.
Even if you believe that the referee made a mistake, the performance throughout the evening wasn’t of the required standard in what is shaping into a fierce final sprint for Champions League qualification. Monaco found it far too easy to disrupt Lyon’s build-up shape with a high press, forcing Dominik Greif to frequently go long rather than try to play the ball through the lines where it would almost inevitably be turned over. Even if they beat the press, there was a concerning dearth in creativity.
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