Ligue 1 Review | Doom and gloom as Metz and Nantes circle the drop
Ligue 1 Review | Doom and gloom as Metz and Nantes circle the drop The sound of a church bell rang out at the Stade Saint-Symphorien as AC/DC’s Hells Bells blared from the FC Metz PA system. Les Grenats familiar entrance music is intended to pump up the crowd, but it took on a more funereal tone on Sunday afternoon as they entered the field alongside the yellow shirts of FC Nantes. It was hard not to shake the image of two struggling teams making the long walk to their open graves.
Ninety minutes of football did little to dispel that notion with a goalless stalemate, despite Tylel Tati’s 39th-minute red card. It’s been a miserable season for the two clubs as they circle the drop down into Ligue 2. Metz sit bottom of the table on 15 points with Nantes just ahead of them on 18.
Already, it feels as if the relegation race has been solved with six games left of the season, with AJ Auxerre pulling slowly away in the playoff spot with a five-point buffer. Nantes do have a game in hand, although that’s against league leaders Paris Saint-Germain. I don’t need to look up the latest odds to tell you that Nantes should probably expect that five-point buffer to remain in place once they’ve played their rescheduled game.
Squad composition exacerbates psychological problems at Nantes Last month, Nantes made history when they appointed Vahid Halilhodzic in their relegation fight. The Bosnian, who had been out of work since 2022, is the oldest manager to take the reins of a Ligue 1 side at 73 years old. Nantes have history of appointing elder statesmen , and it felt obvious that the management hoped experience would be enough to guide the club out of their current quagmire.
However, that doesn’t feel enough this time around. After a promising defeat to RC Strasbourg (3-2), Halilhodzic seemed at a loss to explain the weekend’s performance. “ Psychologically, there’s a real weakness, ” He mused.
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