After his team’s victory against Guingamp (2-0), Jean-Louis Gasset highlighted the amazing performance of his entire team who he sees progress from match to match.
Are you relieved?
I had confidence in my players. We have difficulty finishing strong, which is something that we have to work on. When analyzing the match, you see that we had great ball possession.
What are some of the positive things that you take away from this encounter?
We performed very well during the first half, against a team that wanted to first and foremost make an effort to defend themselves well. We managed to get past their lines. Defensively, we performed very well as well, by giving the adversary no hope of scoring a goal. I would also like to comment on the end of the match, during which we showed that we knew how to get past our opponent’s defenders in order to score a second goal. It’s a match that we dominated.
Do you consider this match to be the most successful match of the year?
Recently we delivered a great performance in Amiens, but didn’t score as many goals as we did tonight. Robert Beric, Romain Hamouma and Oussamma Tannane were sick that week. The flu decimated our offensive line at that moment, but we got around that problem.
Having earned 39 points, have your objectives for the end of the year changed?
Absolutely not. When you look at the calendar, we still have in particular a game in Nantes and a match against Paris Saint-Germain in the Cauldron. We have to push ourselves to the max in order to rise as high as we can in the rankings, as we’ve been doing for the last few matches. If we want to have any hope of winning these next two matches we have to continue developing our defensive skills and be efficient in front of our opponent’s net.
Will the match in Nantes determine your objectives for the end of the season?
Before thinking about this match, we have to first take the time to recover. Certain players were very burnt-out at the end of this match. It’s only after we rest following this match that we’ll begin to focus on the match against Nantes. I’m hopeful concerning our preparation for this next match given our exemplary mentality, the improving quality of our performances and the return of important players like Paul-Georges Ntep who should now be recovered.
You’ve returned to the highest section of the rankings, are you satisfied?
It’s good news. During the pre-game press conference, a question was raised concerning the referee of this match, Amaury Delerue. He refereed the match we lost against Monaco, December 15th, 2018. The atmosphere was very different after the match...The team is playing better and better now. We could be more efficient in front of the net, but during the last 8 matches, we haven’t lost. Better still, we’ve scored during each one of these games.
