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Well we're on a bit of a rollercoaster here. The match against Marseille was completely crazy but turned into one of those nights that fans will remember for years to come, and then the Dijon game was an absolute disaster. Unlike last season, we're now winning our games at home and struggling on the road. Obviously, I think it's always better for a team to earn most of its points at home, but it's still hard to understand what's going on. We were really awful against Dijon, and I think we're seeing that if Yoann doesn't play then the team suffers greatly as a result. We don't really have any clear replacement to fill in for him, and we're really struggling on the wings right now too. Grosicki was great for 10 minutes against Marseille but pretty poor for 90 against Dijon. Meanwhile, Ntep is clearly going to need a bit of time to get back into form. What really struck me about the Dijon game was the weakness of our bench. Zeffane, Lenjani, Henrique, Hunou... the latter did okay when he came on, but really there are no "game changers" on that bench. The squad may be big, but it's still weak in a lot of areas.
I mean, 10 points from 7 games, it's not that bad. It's the same points total as Lyon and we're only 3 points away from PSG, so we're not exactly doing terribly, but we're going to need to keep on winning at Roazhon Park and start playing better overall. When I look through the stats of our games so far, it's easy to see we do have a decent amount of possession but we don't do a lot with it. We don't create too many chances or get our shots on target often enough.
The scary part is that we're about to play one of the most important games of our season: the derby against Guingamp. Right now, we don't really look ready for this game, so I hope we can have a good week of training and get Yoann back involved. I'd also like to see Mendes come back in, as personally I think the Mendes/Bensebaini partnership was great and shouldn't really have been changed in the first place. Honestly though, the starting 11 keeps changing every week now and it's hard to know what our best team really is. Christian Gourcuff has got some big decisions to make for Friday.
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I only saw the Dijon game from the 66th, and I dunno, it seems as if something changed. Maybe too many changes in personnel. Yoann's disappearance is obvious as he's the one who is the world renowned name in football. However, it seemed as if the game plan as they match drew to its end was shoot on sight. And when has that ever worked?
For Rennes news in English: @WeAreRennes
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Yeah, for the last twenty minutes, we looked like headless chickens. I mean we looked like headless chickens for most of the game, but the last bit was just desperate. No ideas, no creativity. I really wish we'd gone and recruited someone else who can play in the same style as Yoann. Even someone like Ludovic Obraniak would've been fine; an experienced, creative attacking midfielder who can make things happen and take time on the ball. At the minute, we look totally bereft of ideas whenever Yoann isn't on the pitch. It all seems to be very "I'm just going to kick it to someone else and hope they come up with something" rather than anyone actually taking responsibility and trying to make things happen.
Still, looking forward to the derby on Friday. Guingamp have played well so far this season. Gonna have a big fight on our hands to keep the home streak going.
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So...was the 2nd goal against Nantes legit? Don't get me wrong, I'll take the points either way. Grosicki has been our best player since he got here, and even though he's excelled in this supersub role, you have to imagine there are bigger clubs out there who would be ready to swoop in and offer him a starting role. As long as he's fit, he should be starting every match on the right wing.
The CdL is a dumb competition, but it would be nice to win a few games to give chances to guys like Gnagnon, Cavare, Figuereido and Erasmus. Let's see what these kids can do.
Allez Rennes
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As a referee, i can tell you that the second goal is legit. It is true that an adverse player shall stay at 9,15m minimum from the ball during the execution of a free-kick. An adverse player that annoys the kicker during the execution of a freekick will receive a yellow card. If the freekick was played and touched by the oponent, the freekick will be replayed. But if this oponent doesn't disturb at all the execution, the referee may let the game played. The reason for that is the intentionality of the kicker, to shoot the ball into the oponent just to make the freekick replayed.
Hard here to see whether the kicker shot the ball into the legs of Sio intentionally or not, but the rules allow the referee, Mr Hamel, to do what he did. Once again, the rules are sometimes to detailled, and bring some mess to the understanding of many decisions taken by the referee.
Once again on last Sunday, I had the two captains in my changing room and asked them if they had any question about the game. One of them had a question about the execution of free-kicks. I answered him what i just told you, and he told me that the referee of the previous game would do in another way. The thing is that the rules give a lot of power to the referees, because they require their interpretation on every decision they make, so that we can see some different decisions in different games for a same situation.
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Thanks Zoub - excellent breakdown. The question then becomes, was Sio 9.15 meters away? And why such an arbitrary number? Why not 9m or 10m, even 9.5m?
In any case, back to back solid wins... Our white boy wingers came through
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A couple of great results recently
For Rennes news in English: @WeAreRennes
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Thanks Zoub - excellent breakdown. The question then becomes, was Sio 9.15 meters away? And why such an arbitrary number? Why not 9m or 10m, even 9.5m?
In any case, back to back solid wins... Our white boy wingers came through
Because the French didn't create soccer, nor Americans, but Brits! And they don't use the metric system, but yards! And the legal distance between the ball and the adverse on every kick is 10 yards (= 9,144 meters).
Sio wasn't 10 yards away, he was maybe 3 yards away from the ball. The thing is that he doesn't disturb Thomasson in the execution of the free kick. So even if the distance wasn't respected, the referee considered that Thomasson could shoot the ball elsewhere and that he did intentionally into Sio's legs.
On this point, our guru KantBZH thinks that Mr Hamel didn't see the action and let the action. I must see the highlights again to see if this hypothesis might the one.
After checking the video, Mr Hamel was facing the ball, so he saw the execution of the Free Kick.
Dernière édition de: Zoub' (28-10-2016 10:34:12)
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I've been singing Said's praises since August...This kid is about to blow up
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Seems so. He's shone through in dribs and drabs thus far, just needs a longer run in the team.
Dernière édition de: Glasgow_Celtic (03-11-2016 02:56:03)
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How frustrating was that game?!
Erasmus clearly doesn't have the quality to play in Ligue 1. I don't know if this is how he plays or it's a confidence thing, but the first thing he does when he gets the ball in try to get rid of it.
It wasn't our night at all tonight and the Ntep chance at the end shows that. The park was a bit bad as well, but I'm not using that as an excuse...nor the refereeing.
For Rennes news in English: @WeAreRennes
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Thoughts on our transfer dealings so far, chaps?
Honestly, I'm utterly gutted to see Ntep go. Such a nice guy and easily one of the few stars of the team. At least we managed to get some money for him, rather than letting him go on a free, but we've lost a big player there, both on and off the pitch.
Kalulul... not gonna pretend that I know much about him because I don't. I've heard of him, but not really seen much of him in action. Taking a kid on loan for six months, without an option to buy, seems more like a 'last resort' than an actual solution to the loss of Ntep, but I'll wait to see him play before making any big judgements.
Rumours suggest we could possibly get Delort. With Erasmus choking and Sio leaving for the Cup of Nations, we definitely could use a guy like that to give us a chance of scoring some more goals.
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Ntep leaving isn't great at all and as we know very little of Kalulu, we don't know if he will provide what Ntep did for the team.
From what i've been told Kalulu had a good Gambardella in 2014/15 but hasn't done much since. I've been told he has bags of pace and a finish on him, so at least that's something.
I'd love it if Delort came here - a proper target man for us and a striker I think that is useful. I'm not a fan of Sio, as I've said on here often enough, and Erasmus isn't a great player at all from what we've seen. And hell mend us if we're stuck with Habib Habou for a few weeks.
However, from recent transfer windows, I think we're kidding ourselves on if we think there will be proper money invested on a player or two who will be a mainstay in the squad.
Dernière édition de: Glasgow_Celtic (11-01-2017 01:17:18)
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Sadly, your comment about us kidding ourselves is very true. Every time we sell a player, I see plenty of people saying "We'll spend that cash on a replacement!" but we never do. We sold Dembélé for an exceptional fee and spent basically no money at all over the summer. Ntep seems to have been sold in the region of 5-8 million, but to say "Okay, we can go spend 5 million on a striker" is just naive. I wish we would. I wish, for once, we could actually see a big arrival at Rennes, but, based on what we've seen over the last couple of seasons, that just seems like a fantasy.
I think we'll bring in a back-up keeper after the loss of Nardi, but that might be it for our transfer dealings. Delort seems too good to be true, and if the press is to be believed, quite a few other teams are interested in him and Tigres aren't even very keen on letting him go. It just sounds like a deal that is way too difficult to pull off for the folks in charge, who already seem pretty incompetent when it comes to buying and selling players.
We sound like a broken record but the team is just too weak in attack. I mean, just the fact that we're 7th in the table despite having a negative goal difference is a bit of a miracle! Sio is not a good striker, but he's still better than Erasmus and Habibou, so we're probably going to miss him when he's gone. I like Said but he's not good enough to lead the line. I don't know why we never went after Diedhiou in the summer. Angers managed to get him for one and a half million and he's already scored more than Sio. Look at Santini at Caen as well. He arrived for about 2 million in the summer and has bagged 8 goals. I see a lot of people saying "it's impossible to find good strikers" but if these other teams are managing it, why can't we? Nobody is saying we need to find a 20 goal a season man, but we definitely need another option up front.
I'll be keeping my fingers crossed, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
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Sorry for the double post but hey, there aren't many of us in the English section!
So the transfer window is done and I have to say, I'm not blown away. I was half-glad to wake up this morning to the news that we'd got Amalfitano, but, after reflection, I'm not really sure how to feel about it. I watched him a lot when he was playing with West Bromwich Albion and thought he was a decent player, but that was a few years ago now and he's not done a lot since then. Lille fans are apparently thrilled to see him go. And honestly... we lose Ntep, Grosicki and Pedro and replace them with Kalulu, Mubele and Amalfitano... it's not great, at least on paper.
So far, Kalulu looks like he could have some skills but doesn't at all fit into our system of "boot the ball miles into the air and hope for the best". I mean it's a sad state of affairs when we're actually looking forward to seeing Sio again. Meanwhile Amalfitano is an old head who knows the league well, but we can't expect the same sort of explosiveness and impact out of him as we would've gotten from PG and Grosicki. Mubele is a total unknown quantity. I've watched him with the national side and thought he looked pretty poor to be honest, but it's daft to judge a player on just a couple of performances. I hope he'll do well.
I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt for now and am looking forward to seeing these new players in action, but I think it's hard to argue against the fact that the squad has definitely been weakened by this window. And the summer surely holds some more surprises in store, but we know that Costil will be going, and if Gnagnon keeps playing well then I'm worried about him too.
The official word seems to be "We want to rely on our academy players and build a squad around them." which is a nice idea, but I just don't know how it'll work out in reality. I think there needs to be a balance of youth and experience, and we can't just keep on letting our best elements go without ever bringing in some genuine quality replacements. At least we managed to get rid of Bruls and Habibou. But the problem is, if we keep on taking risks on exotic players like Mubele and Erasmus or "investing" in players who are past their best like Amalfitano, we're just going round in circles.
Overall, it's been a weird window that, quite frankly, leaves us with very little chance of enjoying a successful second half of the season. I mean, I know it was a bit ambitious and hopeful for us to start talking about Europe this season, but we'd put ourselves in a good position by the start of 2017. Now, we've sold two of our most decisive players, and we already have a LOT of trouble scoring goals, so things aren't looking great.
I'll stay hopeful but transfer windows like this one aren't very inspiring.
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In all honesty, I think we're fucked. Well, for this season, and maybe next if we don't change in a big way cause we're heading down a slope.
Ruello's out of his mind and I have given Gourcuff the benefit of the doubt on a few things this season, but I've lost confidence in him.
For Rennes news in English: @WeAreRennes
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Haha! I couldn't help bursting out laughing when I read the start of that post. You've certainly summed up your sentiments there.
Honestly, I'm inclined to agree with you. Even though I want to try and play the "rational" supporter hoping that it's all going to work out in the long run, I have become pretty disillusioned over the last couple of weeks. The Bordeaux game was decent but come on... everyone's getting all worked up and even Gourcuff himself comes out and says it was the best game we've played all season. When you're saying things like that about a 1-1 draw against a team who played terribly, you know things aren't going great. The Paris exit in the cup was disgraceful. I know Paris and Monaco are good teams but so what? Upsets happen all the time, especially in the cup. If you go in with the attitude of "Oh they've got Cavani and Verratti, we've got no chance" then you might as well just forfeit and save the fans the time and money of going all the way to the stadium.
Totally agreed with you on Ruello. I can't stand the bloke and I don't know what he's doing. The pathetic "club statement" thing he sent out the other day that basically said "Oh the media are being mean to me, that's not fair, I'm an awesome president!" was one of the worst things I've ever seen in football. The guy has no understanding or care for how the fans feel and it makes you wonder if he even enjoys or appreciates the sport at all. Meanwhile, this whole "Gourcuff project" and phrases like "This player isn't Gourcuff-compatible" or "Gourcuff doesn't like star players"... all of that just winds me up. Can we all stop with the idea that Gourcuff is really some kind of bloody genius? I mean he's not a bad manager and did an alright job at Lorient but the man's never really even been closing to winning a proper trophy in his life and seems to have no ambition whatsoever. I mean when he first arrived at the club, I remember reading a quote like "I've got nothing left to prove in my career"... yes you have, mate. And even if you think you haven't, that's not the sort of attitude fans want to hear about a new manager coming into the club! As many other forumers are saying, we're not Lorient. We aren't going to be happy with a bunch of mid-table finishes and a nice little group of lads who focus on teamwork. We want results.
I mean I don't have anything against him and I'm hoping he does well and think he deserves time, but it's more his attitude and the attitude of people around him that annoy me so much... this whole notion that he's got some super unique strategy and can only work with certain players and blah blah blah. The guy plays a 4-4-2 in every game and likes to keep things structured with team-oriented players... in terms of football tactics, you can't really get more basic than that. I watch the Premier League a lot and, if I was to compare him to a British manager, it'd be a Steve Bruce or a Tony Pulis... guys who are reliable, have proven they can do a job at mid-table to low-table clubs, but have never really made it any higher, tending to rely on relatively simple 4-4-2 football and hard-working players. And even then, Pulis and Bruce have both made it to cup finals and earned more honours than CG, and they've never had much of a problem handling good players. Because guess what? Good players are the ones who win you football matches! And if we ever want to compete with Monaco/Nice/Marseille/Lyon/PSG/etc we need to keep the few good players we get, not sell them on and hope that some kid in the academy will be able to replace them.
I also get annoyed with the way he provides these little analytical speeches after every game where he highlights everything that went wrong. It's like "Okay... you clearly understand why we lost, what are you going to do to fix it?" It's like there's no emotion, it's all just robotic, it's kinda the same problem I have with Ruello. It's this whole attitude of "Oh well it doesn't really matter if we win or lose. Who cares if we finish 14th? This is a 'transition year'. etc. etc. etc." Meanwhile, fans pay their money and drive hours back and forth and haven't seen a win for months!
This is a big rant to basically say it feels like the passion is being driven out of the club, and I think that's what hurts the most. I can genuinely understand the patient people who are able to say "I'm okay if we finish 14th this season, I believe in CG and am prepared to be patient." and let's hope they're right, but, on a base level, football fans go to games every week with the hope of watching a good game. They want 90 minutes of excitement, they want players who fight, they want to see a manager throwing his fists on the touchline and a classy winger dribbling his way into the box. As the French say, we go to matches to "vibrer" and share our passion with thousands of other fans who are singing and jumping and having fun. I feel like, at the moment, the people in charge of the club have forgotten all that. They're treating it like a business, cold and calculated. We'll all still be there, because no self-respecting football fan can ever really give up on his or her team, but we're not content, and rightfully so.
EDIT: And just a little update after this evening's miserable display... the fact that this club can continuously go through transfer windows without addressing the fact that we need a bloody striker is becoming and more ridiculous with every passing week. We are so SO weak up front it's embarrassing, and to have sold the two guys who contributed to most of our goals really doesn't help. It's displays like tonight that show exactly why you need a couple of star players like Ntep in the squad, because without them, we've just got a bunch of meanderers passing it back and forth and never daring to try anything. Meanwhile, Delort has gone and scored 2 in 2 for Toulouse.
Dernière édition de: MichaelBBack (08-02-2017 23:34:07)
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We f***ing suck.
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We're absolutely useless, have a useless manager and a non-existant strikeforce. No reason why we have Kalulu or even wanted him.
For Rennes news in English: @WeAreRennes
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yeah completely agree, and why does he keep persisting with the same bulls**t every week? what goes through his head? "we've won once since December, I know what well do, I'll make them play exactly the same but this time I'll put our best midfielder on the wing!"
Great plan Gourcuff you footballing genius. because obviously there is only one way you can possibly play football and matter if that style of play and formation makes the most of the players you have you can never NEVER change it, WHAT A GENIUS. I mean he's obviously right, look at all the success he's had....... oh wait...
I don't understand it though because if this was montanier or courbis the press and the fans would be slating him but no because he's Breton they stand by him, time to open your eyes and stop listening to all his 101 excuses that he comes out with and see what he is doing to our club ....
oh I have too many players... oh the pitch is artificial.... oh the players aren't good enough ... oh not enough players because of injuries... the players don't fit the formation...
we had good players you sold them... complaining about artificial pitches, what a joke, have you guys been to the training grounds? they have about 5! they train on it all the time! pathetic excuse...
no good players? then why do you send quality (or better quality than we have already) away when they are about to sign (odegaard, osvaldo...)
The players aren't good enough for this style/formation .... then change your stupid formation and tactics that obviously don't and never have worked!!!
rant over (for now)
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I'm in total agreement with you Yesugei (in fact, I'd already seen your posts in the French section of the forum and was going to reply to you there to say how right you were).
"if this was montanier or courbis the press and the fans would be slating him"
^ This is so true, and it's the worst part. Honestly, there are times when I find myself wishing we could have carried on with Courbis. Yeah, he screwed up a bit at the end, but at least under him we had the 4-1 win against Nantes, the big victory against Marseille... at least we FELT something and the team actually seemed to know how to score goals with him in charge. But when we started losing, it was immediately "Courbis is terrible, get him out, he's killing the club, etc." whereas with CG it's "Don't worry, CG has a plan, we're starting to see his strategy, the team is getting better, this is all just part of the transition."
People need to wake up. I don't have much against Gourcuff as a person but as a coach, I do not think he is this 'genius' everyone makes him out to be. He hasn't won any trophies and he definitely isn't going to win any with us playing like this. His stubbornness to stick to 4-4-2 when every man and his dog can easily see that 4-4-2 is NOT the best formation for our squad, is just ridiculous, and his silly little post-match 'analysis' just winds me up every time. If he's so clever and can obviously see all the problems, why does he never do anything to fix them?! Nope, just stick the same players out in the same formation with the same terrible level of motivation and hope for the best.
And then stuff like complaining about the pitch... it's just desperate. We've won a single game in twenty. It's an absolute embarrassment but no, don't worry everyone, the "patte de Gourcuff" is starting to have its effect, the team is SO much better than under Montanier or Courbis.
Let's face facts, this has been one of the worst seasons in recent memory, we've got one of the weakest attacks in the entire league and frankly, if it wasn't for a few lucky wins in the first half of the season, we'd be in a relegation fight right now. The sort of form we're in is utterly disastrous and I haven't looked, but I'm sure if you found a league table of results since the start of 2017, we'd be at the bottom. The club is in crisis and something needs to be done.
The problem is that a lot of people are still saying "don't worry, we're going to have a good transfer window" but are we? Really? I don't see it happening for 3 main reasons:
1) Pinault hasn't bothered spending any cash at all in recent years, so why would he now? The guy obviously doesn't give a crap and, according to recent finance reports, we're still in the red because of all the salaries we're paying. We've sold Ntep, Dembélé, Henrique and Grosicki, as well as losing guys like Boga and Quintero, and replaced them with... Mubele and Kalulu.
2) CG doesn't seem to actually want any individually-skilled players because... I don't know why. Because he doesn't like working with good footballers, or something like that? So... there you go.
3) Why would anyone want to come to Rennes? Even if we had the funds necessary to attract some players, what can we offer them that would make anyone choose us over a club like Bordeaux or Saint Etienne (two clubs that aren't great, but still actually show some ambition and try to fight for Europe each year)? "Oh yeah, come to Rennes, you'll be part of a dull team with a president that openly settles for mid-table mediocrity and a stubborn coach who will force you into his 4-4-2 whether you like it or not." We can't offer them Europe, we're known for bottling it in the cups and we have a pretty miserable record in the league, as well as being renowned for selling all of our best players (oh and let's not forget Costil will be leaving and if we hold onto Gnagnon, that'll be a shock).
So this whole thing of "don't worry guys, it'll all be fine next season" really doesn't wash with me. And let's not forget, even if we managed to bring in some players, if Gourcuff carries on managing in this terrible way, there's no guarantee that we'll actually play any better. The players look like they have absolutely no idea what to do when they get the ball. We create nothing, we barely score... Right now, we're one of the dullest, weakest teams in Ligue 1.
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Thought I'd raise a few points off the back of the two posts above.
I wouldn't have carried on with Courbis, he's just done a slightly less bad version of what Gourcuff is doing now. When Montanier left, we were 3rd or 4th place and European football for the season after looked a certainty. After Courbis took the reigns, we ended up 8th in a league where even 6th place got Europe, then sold Dembélé, but that was maybe inevitable. He made us worse. Gourcuff has taken us from being 8th and unfortunate not be in Europe, to playing dull, selling our best players and not replacing them, now we're 14th!!
It's clear to see that in modern day football 4-4-2 is outdated and I'm as infuriated as the next guy that André is being shoehorned out wide, sometimes on the wrong side!
Don't understand the mindset behind Pinault and Ruello at all, we made heavens knows how much money on Dembélé and we must be reaping the money in with the add-ons we surely added to the purchase with him playing in the Champions League. Yet, we spent just one million pounds in the summer transfer window and basically nothing in January too. I'll say this again, but I don't know why we bought Aldo Kalulu. I've nothing against the guy personally, but he had no record and was wasting at Lyon and showed no record before we loaned him in.
On Boga and Quintero, I never rated either of them. Boga was average and Quintero never bothered his arse, yet both came with a band of followers from their respective clubs who thought both were the next best thing since sliced bread. The same with Erasmus. On my @WeAreRennes page on Twitter, I had literally hundreds of Orlando Pirates fans follow the page and tell me how much of a great player we were getting and how badly he'll be missed. He did nothing and showed nothing. He looked scared every time he got the ball and would just pass it to a teammate. It was as if he knew himself that he wasn't good enough.
I do like Mubele, however, and with a proper strike partner who isn't Sio, who cannot be arsed most games, I think he can be a true asset. I think Mubele has the fight, drive and determination to do well, but he needs a good strike partner if we are to persist with 4-4-2, or a good playmaker behind him.
On the subject of still being in the red due to wages, I read somewhere recently that Celtic have have a higher wage total than Rennes. That's crazy due to the fact that Rennes play in a much more popular and financially wealthy league and have an extremely better TV deal that any Scottish team could wish to have. Yet, I think if the two were to play tomorrow, Celtic would comfortably win the match. They have much better players, bar one or two, and the better team collectively.
For Rennes news in English: @WeAreRennes
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That Mubele will go places.
For Rennes news in English: @WeAreRennes
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I wouldn't have carried on with Courbis either. The point I was more trying to make was that, at least under him, the fans got to see a few exciting games and the team actually managed to score a few goals, neither of which has really happened under Gourcuff.
I'm not 100% sold on Mubele yet but he's definitely, at the very least, a decent player who can be an asset to the team. Based on what I've seen, I'd still rather have Ntep or Grosicki (or Dembélé, lol), but he seems like a better player than Henrique. He's a hard worker, and those are the sorts of players I always like to watch.
Anyway, back onto the current state of play... thank God we've at least managed to rack up so many draws and basically save ourselves with those points, because we've now won as many games as Lorient. I can't stand Bastia and we've gone and given them a chance to stay in the league for another year, too. We're probably going to finish a little higher than our target 14th place, but I reckon both Nantes and Guingamp will finish ahead of us, probably Lille and Toulouse as well. It just shows how weak the league is that a team can win 2 in 20 and still be in the top half. Our form is relegation-worthy and if we don't have a big summer, I can see us having huge problems next season. We've won 1 game away from home. 1 game!! Every other team except Dijon has won more than that! At least we managed to save face a little recently with the results against Lyon, Lille and St Etienne, but those results are now sandwiched between losses to Bastia and Nancy, so it puts things in perspective.
Sio is utterly abysmal, Said doesn't give a damn and Yoann is a shadow of his former self at the minute. I actually find it pretty gross that CG continues to give his son so many minutes where it's clear to everyone how exhausted he looks and how poorly he's playing. He completed 69% of his passes yesterday and lost the ball 26 times.
3 games to go. Montpellier and Monaco at home. Caen away. Can we double our away wins tally for the season at Caen? Will we manage to take three points against Montpellier and give the RP crowd something to cheer about? At least on the final day we should be able to witness a bit of excitement as Monaco claim the title on our pitch. I see us taking between 2 and 4 points from these last games, meaning that we'd finish with a points tally just a bit lower than last season's 52.
Edit: Also, having read a lot of the reactions and opinions of the forum users who actually mustered up the courage to watch yesterday's game, there's such a general feeling around the place that nobody cares anymore. The fans have been sapped of their passion and it's not even the usual "It's the end of the season, there's nothing left to play for so who cares?" sort of mentality, it's a "Our team is SO bad that I can't bring myself to feel anything", and this is a point that I think we've been coming back to time and time again throughout the course of the season. I'm sure that if we'd seen a few more exciting games, a few more goals, a few more performances of players who actually fight for every ball, and a few more memorable moments, even with the same points tally, the fans would be a lot more satisfied, and that's because a big part of the spectator experience of this sport is the 'vibrations'. People go to the games because they want to see those magical moments, they want to jump around and sing, they want to see hard-working 'leave it all on the pitch' sort of guys who go all out to get the 3 points, they want to see a manage shaking his fist and getting riled up after a loss. They want to feel some bloody passion and honestly, we've barely felt a drop of it since the season began. When you look at what our biggest rivals, Nantes, have managed to do since their new manager stepped in, all this "transition year" and "building the team with Gourcuff-compatible players" stuff sounds like a load of BS and I long for the day where we can all watch a game and finally feel something again.
Dernière édition de: MichaelBBack (30-04-2017 11:25:03)
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