Ligue 1 | Monaco, Marseille and the holes in the Gruyère: alert in defense

Monaco and Marseille have many common points: their ambitions, their situations in the classification, their differences in goals (+19), their offensive facilities and their … porous defenses. Since the start of the season, the two clubs, which compete this Saturday (5:00 p.m.) as part of the 29th day of Ligue 1, have been dragging the same difficulties. The consequences are similar, since one as the other fail to detach themselves at the top of the ranking. The causes differ.

OM suffers from a structural problem. The Roberto de Zerbi team dominates a large majority of its meetings. But his counter-pressing lacks efficiency and individual marking is extremely fragile. Since the start of the season, the Marseille club has not managed to keep its invited cage only six times all competitions. With 38 goals conceded in 28 days, Marseille is only the eighth defense of the championship, tied with Lyon and Rennes. No team ranked second in the championship at this stage of the competition had collected as many pawns since Bordeaux in 1982-1983.

“We collected too many goals, we know itnoted Adrien Rabiot on Friday at a press conference. We work a lot of our line of defense, even if we have already been put in difficulty. These are little things: you have to be more attentive and concentrated. (…) Work, we do it in the field and on video. Afterwards, it must be applied to the field. We took too many goals but we try to correct it. “Roberto de Zerbi, he advanced another explanation: the lack of depth of his workforce in this sector.

With Bamo Méïté loaned to Montpellier, Chancel Mbemba still dismissed from the group, OM only has three central profession defenders. But Leonardo Balerdi suffers from a sprained knee and Luiz Felipe, winter recruit, multiplies the back and forth to the infirmary. It is therefore only Derek Cornelius, whose performances are not always satisfactory despite real progress in recent weeks.

“If you are honest, you have to look at the qualities of the teamhas noted Of Zerbi. Rongier and Kondogbia are great players, but are not defenders. You can play three, four or five. But four, who can I align? I have to adapt well. “By backing backgrounds, the Italian technician exhibits his team to naive errors.”On certain phases of play, we get caught too easilyadmitted Rabiot. While on the contrary, this is not always the case.”

This extreme fragility cost many points at OM, as when traveling to Reims (3-1). Marseille could even have lost more last week, against Toulouse (3-2), without the amazing awkwardness of Shavy Babicka. A few weeks earlier, Téfecé had still managed to trap AS Monaco (1-1 with a goal in the additional time of Franck Magri). The Principality club is rather well supplied in number (Kehrer, Mawissa, Singo, Salisu) but suffers from chronic individual errors which do not only affect its central defenders.

“We must be honest, there have been too many individual errors this seasonrecently deplored Adi Hütter. As a coach, when tactically your opponent creates few opportunities but you don't win the match, it's very frustrating. In Toulouse we made a good match, but we concede this goal at the very end which makes us lose two important points when you look at the ranking.”

The previous week, a slide from Denis Zakaria had cost Lille (2-1). And last week, on the lawn of Brest (2-1), it was the Philipp Köhn goalkeeper who made two guilty errors … After finding the number one position following the big dumpling of Radoslaw Majecki against Toulouse.

Hütter, sometimes furax against individual blunders that he judges “unacceptable“, decided to fix Köhn in the cage. And to hope for an awareness of his players, whose words are not always followed by acts. And since the oppositions between Monaco and OM often offer a lot of spectacle, it is undoubtedly expected to see a lot of goals, this Saturday, in Louis-II.