The Rhone club snatched a victory as prestigious as it was reassuring, Friday, on the pitch of the third, which allows it to move up to 16th place.
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After the reaction, the confirmation. OL are doing better. Pierre Sage’s players got the better of AS Monaco (1-0), Friday December 15, at the opening of the 16th day of Ligue 1. Faced with the third in the championship, they did not have any complexes and show patience. A goal from incoming Jeffinho in the 85th minute, at the conclusion of an impressive collective movement, allowed them to take three precious points.
A week after its most convincing success of the season, in Toulouse (3-0), it is a second consecutive victory for OL, who collected almost as many points in one week (6) as in their 14 first outings (7). In the post-match press conference, Pierre Sage refused to speak of a “breath of fresh air”. “No one will remember our ranking after this day. The objective is to maintain it”, replied dryly the one whose interim position began two weeks ago. Neither relieved nor very open to questions from journalists, he still appreciated the fact that a player scores coming off the bench, in the sense that “it rallies as many players as possible to the collective cause”.
Before the rest of this 16th day, Olympique Lyonnais is in 16th place out of 18 in Ligue 1. It is two points ahead of Clermont, which travels to Marseille on Sunday (5:05 p.m.), and one length ahead of Lorient, which receives Strasbourg the same day (3:00 p.m.). A long road remains to be covered for the club with seven French championship titles but the bar is rising after a catastrophic start. In the 21st century, only three of the last nine teams to score exactly 13 points after 16 games in a Ligue 1 season have experienced relegation.
