what the appointment of coach David Guion at the head of the Girondins should bring

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The maintenance operation is launched in Bordeaux. This is David Guion, appointed by the club Thursday February 17, who will have the heavy task of saving the Girondins from relegation. On the edge of the precipice and now the red lantern of the elite, the Marines and Whites have fourteen games to keep their place in Ligue 1.

David Guion, former Stade de Reims coach, succeeds Vladimir Petkovic, who was laid off at the start of last week. Rather unknown despite good results in Champagne, the 54-year-old technician will lead his first meeting against Monaco on Sunday February 20. Franceinfo: sport details the characteristics of the new coach of the Bordeaux team.

A defensive tactician

With 61 goals conceded, the Girondins de Bordeaux have the worst defense of the five major championships. In half of their 24 games, they have conceded at least three goals and have never kept a clean sheet this season. In these conditions, finding a stable rear guard was the priority of Admar Lopes, sports director of the Aquitaine club. David Guion knows how to do it in the field: under his orders, the Stade de Reims has served as a reference in the matter. For its first season, in 2017-2018, the Champenois flew over Ligue 2 by conceding 24 goals.

Two equally successful exercises followed: fourth defense of the elite in 2018-2019, Reims ended a 2019-2020 season truncated by the Covid-19 at the top of the defense rankings. His 21 goals conceded in 28 games allowed him to reach the preliminary round of the Europa League, a first for the Champagne club since 1963. If Guion’s last season at Delaune proved less dashing (14th place and 50 goals against), the coach knows how to consolidate the bases of a team.

A key for the Bordeaux attack

Like a sort of reverse side of the coin, the Stade de Reims Guion version did not really shine offensively. Eleventh attack the year of the comeback, Reims ranked 19th in the exercise… the year when it had the best defense! It was hardly more brilliant last year (15th ex-æquo). “To say he’s a defensive coach is a huge shortcut.”said Stéphane Dumont, his deputy in Champagne, in the columns of South West. The current Guingamp coach mobilizes the 74 goals scored in Ligue 2, in 2017-2018, to justify himself.

In his defense, the native of Le Mans had a quantitatively limited workforce in Reims. From odds and ends, he still managed to make Boulaye Dia shine, transferred to Villarreal after a 2020-2021 season with 14 goals. He will have much sharper knives on the banks of the Garonne, like Hwang Ui-Jo (10 goals) or Alberth Elis (9 goals). Without forgetting Rémi Oudin, on alternating current since his arrival in Gironde but revealed in Reims under the leadership of Guion.

A firefighter on duty

It is customary, to carry out a rescue operation, to bet on a technician who is experienced in the exercise. Without being a specialist in the field, David Guion knows how to do it. Appointed for the first time in April 2016 three days from the end, he had not been able to bring a drifting ship afloat (18th). Returned to Ligue 1 two years later, he faced the fight to maintain last year. 17th in December, Reims then recovered to finish above the waterline.

In addition, Guion knows French football perfectly. He played more than 70 top-flight games with Lille and Angers in his professional career and led more than a hundred on the Reims bench. The fact may seem anecdotal, but it is far from being inconsistent in a very cosmopolitan Bordeaux context – thirteen nationalities represented. Nor has anyone forgotten in Gironde that two of the last three Marines and Whites coaches – Paulo Sousa and Vladimir Petkovic – knew nothing of Ligue 1 before arriving. And with hindsight, we cannot honestly say that the experience was conclusive.


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