Montpellier, it’s definitely for the best, often, and for the worst, sometimes. With Rennes and Nice, the MHSC is thus the Ligue 1 team which, this season, obtains fewest draws : only four, after 23 days.
A sign that this team wins or loses, but that it rarely goes halfway, capable as she is of snatching an unexpected victory but fabulous in Nice or on her lawn facing Monaco, but incapable that she is to hold a victory, even if undeserved, against Strasbourg and Saint-Etienne.
Matches, like others, during which Olivier Dall’Oglio’s men were also unable to apply the famous saying that when you can’t win a match, you have to at least know not to lose it. The reception of Troyes, which ended up triumphing in Montpellier, was also the perfect illustration of this.
Montpellier: an extremist team?
We know, we repeat, Montpellier has bet on youth and a limited workforce. Choice guided by the crisis and the finances of the club. So inevitably, unlike some competitors, if we imagine that Montpellier plays in the big leagues, the Paillade sometimes passes from the scarecrow as facing the men of the rock, to the dreadful as Saturday at Geoffroy Guichard, when one or two major players are missing. But Montpellier is also like its captain, and that’s what makes it so charming: a spectacular team, but a bad manager.
First, the MHSC does not yet know how to manage its emotions quite correctly. With five red cards Since August, Jordan Ferri and his partners have been at the top of the championship, with Clermont and Lyon, among the Ligue 1 teams that receive the most. That of maestro Téji Savanier, facing the Estac, symbolizes this character trait in itself.
Then, Montpellier Hérault has recently encountered difficulties in time management: of the last ten goals conceded, in the last five matches in all competitions, nine have been in the last quarter of an hour. Sign that the Paillade does not master its meeting purposes.
Finally, another problem: energy and effort management, like some players who give their all, but struggle to finish matches, slow down, let their guard down and end up lacking lucidity or vigilance.
The coach and his staff, who have already settled a good number of projects in record time and often with the means at hand, therefore still have their work cut out for them. The players themselves will have to roll up your sleeves on Saturday, against the reigning French champion. What they have always done after being criticized by fans or sent to the ropes by opponents this season.
Today the equation is as simple to establish as complex to solve : La Paillade must avoid roller coasters, remain an attraction and stay on the right track.