His position had become untenable. The draw conceded against Toulouse (1-1) on Friday, punctuating a series of five games without a win, was fatal to Peter Bosz. The Lyon coach was dismissed from his post on Sunday October 9, replaced by Laurent Blanc. His departure from the bench of an OL eighth, nine points from the podium, highlights the many malfunctions from which the Gones suffer, and which the French technician will have to repair.
Zero points against the big guys, an inconclusive game
Any team from the soft belly. This is what has become, more or less, of Olympique Lyonnais. Sovereign against smaller teams (Ajaccio, Angers, Auxerre, Troyes), the Gones are unable to raise the cursor when adversity thickens. Lorient, Monaco, Paris and Lens have all beaten OL, without there being much to complain about. Seventh attack and sixth defense in Ligue 1, Lyon does not have the makings of a team which aims, according to its president Jean-Michel Aulas, “the podium”.
Worse, the game produced by the Rhôdaniens also largely disappointed. Often stereotyped, sometimes even without ideas – as against Toulouse last Friday -, the Lyonnais delivered copies light years away from a “Nice game” hammered home by Peter Bosz upon his appointment. The leaders of Lyon have been patient, despite the absence of notable progress in sixteen months and a pitiful eighth place finish during the previous exercise. Bosz himself confessed that he “should have been fired” from last season. He did not survive this gloomy start to the season.
An unbalanced workforce due to an unfinished transfer window
The sequence went viral afterwards. We see Bruno Cheyrou, head of recruitment, arguing that other clubs are “jealous” of the Lyon transfer window. We are then at the beginning of July, and OL have just repatriated Alexandre Lacazette and Corentin Tolisso. The beginning of a new era ? Nay, the two summer months see the workforce only retouched at the margin. Left-back Nicolas Tagliafico and young midfielder Johann Lepenant are certainly satisfactory, but the overall rendering is too meager. OL have not cut down as they wanted either. Players waiting to leave like Houssem Aouar, Jerome Boateng or Moussa Dembélé finally stayed.
“There may be coaches in other Ligue 1 clubs who want to leave because they are jealous of the recruitment we are doing…”
Bruno Cheyrou’s barely disguised spade at Sampaoli and OM. pic.twitter.com/CgMpm2qIat
– RMC Sport (@RMCsport) July 1, 2022
Judge “imbalance” by Peter Bosz during his induction, the workforce gives the same impression sixteen months later. As proof, Peter Bosz was forced to tinker with Thiago Mendes in central defense. The Brazilian, a midfielder, does what he can, but his shortcomings are glaring. The promising Castello Lukeba was promoted to start alongside him, with no real alternative in the event of a slack.
Offensively, OL sold their artist Lucas Paqueta… without reinvesting the 60 million euros generated by this transfer to replace him. The returns of Tolisso and Lacazette, without being real “failures”, do not pull the group up for the moment. The leaders, including the director of football Vincent Ponsot, have also recently been criticized by former players Juninho or Sidney Govou.
A sale that drags on
Will Peter Bosz be the only one to leave the capital of Gaul in the coming weeks? The sale of 90% of OL’s shares to John Textor – via his Eagle Football holding company – set for October 21 could redistribute the cards. The process is proving much longer than announced, four months after the official announcement of the opening of negotiations.
Initially set for September 30, the deadline was extended by three weeks to “finalize the legal documentation and the last steps prior to the completion of the operation”, explained OL Groupe in a press release. These complications inevitably prevent the club from projecting itself, even in the short term.
The unknown White, after six years of absence on an important club bench
The caliber of the “President”, former coach of the Blues, champion with Bordeaux and Paris, is no longer to be proven. But since his departure from PSG, six years have passed. Blanc certainly trained Al Rayyan SC, in the Qatari championship, between December 2020 and February 2022, but this experience is hardly comparable to the work that awaits him in Lyon. Accompanied by Franck Passi, he will have to manage the moods of a locker room that does not breathe serenity.
Alexandre Lacazette did not hesitate to castigate his Dutch coach on Prime Video, after the draw against Toulouse. It is an understatement to say that the expectations around the former libero of the Blues are high. A change of coach in the middle of the season is never trivial at OL. In thirty-five years of reign, Jean-Michel Aulas has only resolved to do so three times: in 1997 he separated from Guy Stéphan, in 2015 from Hubert Fournier, and in 2019 from Sylvinho.
In this slump, Laurent Blanc has at least one advantage: the season will stop for two months, due to the World Cup. The internationals can be counted on the fingers of one hand (Lopes, Tagliafico, Toko Ekambi), this truce promises to be studious in Lyon.