AS Saint-Etienne coach Jean-Louis Gasset said his team showed they were “allergic to losing” as they fought back with 10 men to draw at RC Strasbourg Alsace on Sunday. All the weekend reactions…
Sunday, August 19, 2018
Toulouse FC 2 – 1 Girondins de Bordeaux 
Alain Casanova (Toulouse coach): “The most important thing is the victory. It is good for our supporters to win the derby. There were things I liked in the performance. We showed a desire to play even if we are still a bit fearful. We showed a positive attitude. We still need to progress in certain areas but in the end I am a satisfied coach. That said, this is still just three points and we will be judged over the duration. Let’s see if we are up to it.”
Éric Bedouet (Bordeaux interim coach): “We needed to kill the game in the first half when we had the chance. That’s football – when you don’t do it, you get punished. This was better than our performance against Strasbourg (a 2-0 defeat on the opening weekend), but we are not managing to put a run of results together. There is still work to be done, but we are struggling playing every three days, with the European games.”
RC Strasbourg Alsace 1-1 AS Saint-Etienne 
Thierry Laurey (Strasbourg coach): “It is infuriating that we were not able to be rigorous through to the 93rd minute. There were little details that cost us dear but these are just things we need to put right. We had the three points in our grasp and then from their only chance in the second half, Saint-Etienne scored. It is frustrating because we had done everything right against a really good team. The boys gave everything so I cannot reproach them for anything. Sometimes I would like to have a little more depth on the bench. It hurts to drop two points, but there are still a lot of matches left. If we had been told at the start of the season we might have four points from two matches, we would have taken that straight away.”
Jean-Louis Gasset (Saint-Etienne coach): “It took courage, self-sacrifice and also talent to get a point down to 10 men and in 30 degree heat. We suffered but we kept believing until the end. We knew we would get three or four chances on the break and we converted one. We have a team who are allergic to losing. We started with four attacking players on the field because we wanted to win. But the sending-off obliged me to become more defensive. But we defended well and (Stéphane) Ruffier made several saves. (Makhtar) Gueye is a young forward who has been working with us since the start of the season because of the injury to (Robert) Beric. He lived up to our expectations. He has athletic qualities, hunger and if he still a lot of suppleness in his game, he is quite handy in front of goal.”
Saturday, August 18, 2018
EA Guingamp 1-3 Paris Saint-Germain 
Antoine Kombouaré (Guingamp coach): “There’s two disappointments, the first is the first half where we could have gone in at the break 2-0 up. It was the referee’s opinion, and it went against us. And the second disappointment is to have conceded too soon. I had asked them to be vigilant, disciplined, that we not concede in the first 15 minutes. The fact they scored so soon was a real blow. And after that, you could see we had put a lot of effort into the first half and didn’t have enough left in the tank for the second, and their precision and above all the talent of Kylian [Mbappé], along with that of Neymar, hurt us a lot and they were able to score the three goals. We won the first half, they the second. My players did what I expected of them.”
Thomas Tuchel (Paris Saint-Germain coach): “The first half was very difficult because we weren’t ready for this match. Guingamp are a quality side and played with a lot of intensity. They are very tough to play at home. We were very happy to still be in the game at half-time, because we could have conceded three goals. In the second half, we changed mentality. We had to change and we did, so I’m happy about that. It was a great fight-back.”
Stade Rennais FC 1-0 Angers SCO 
Sabri Lamouchi (Rennes coach): “There were good things at the start of the game. We just lacked precision in the final ball, the final shot…You have to remember Angers came here to reassure themselves, and they almost managed to succeed. We needed a great performance from our captain, André. We made changes to win the game. It’s deserved, and it was also for Sarr, who won it with a great piece of individual flair. We suffered, it was tough, but my players were great.”
Stéphane Moulin (Angers coach): “The players did what they had to do, but it wasn’t enough. Like with the fourth goal last week, the ball was deflected again…We have to take it on the chin, we were good in what we did. Rennes struggled to break us down, we got our style back, but it wasn’t enough…We have improvements to make: we didn’t get a shot on target. I liked the attitude. We didn’t give anything to our opponents, they were obliged to dig deep to get their win. I was more annoyed last weekend. This time, I’m more frustrated given what we did. We already went through a bad spell three years ago, but we managed to get out of it.”
Amiens SC 1-2 Montpellier Hérault SC 
Christophe Pélissier (Amiens coach): “We lost, but not everything was bad. The squad fought back so that they didn’t sink after going 2-0 down. We lost because we weren’t effective up front. I have been saying it for some time now: we’re lacking at least two attackers. When you lose three of your four forwards in the close season, it’s not good. You don’t need to be a genuis. We absolutely need players who replace what we lost. It’s vital for us.”
Michel Der Zakarian (Montpellier coach): “Overall, we defended well as a team even if we could have used our possession better. I liked the way our three forwards were complementary with each other, they had good movement and passed the ball well. This evening, we were much more compact.”
Dijon FCO 2-0 FC Nantes 
Olivier Dall’Oglio (Dijon coach): “Six points in two matches, it’s an excellent start to the season. Against Nantes, a team against which it’s tough to have possession, it was a difficult game. I had asked my team to be active very quickly, and we scored very quickly. We had a good number of chances and Nantes didn’t really put us in danger. I was also happy with that, because I’d asked us to play deep. As for Julio Tavares, he again did the trick, he’s clinical and very useful for the team.”
Miguel Cardoso (Nantes coach): “We can’t be happy with this result. We controlled the first half, the second not so well. But against a Dijon team that is almost the same as last season, it’s tough. We almost had no chances and didn’t get a shot on target. We weren’t able to go deep, our use the space to create chances. But you mustn’t forget that players like Boschilia and Waris arived just ten or 12 days ago. We are a new team with new players. We’re going to keep working on our project.”
AS Monaco 0-0 LOSC 
Leonardo Jardim (Monaco coach): “I’ve been in football a long time, I didn’t come into football by helicopter just last week. I had said this team would be difficult to play against. Sometimes, Lille were on top, other times it was us. The penalty could have changed the game. The 0-0 was a fair result. The team made a few bad passes. They need time, experience, to improve and better control the game. We tried to control the game. We tried with Jovetic as a number ten, but, well…With Golovin or Adama [Traoré], it’ll be different. The team didn’t play badly, they didn’t play well either.”
Christophe Galtier (Lille coach): “It’s always a good point when you get a draw at Monaco. And it’s a good point because we played well. We showed the desire to play and attack. It was more and more open in the first half and I thought we were going to open the scoreing, but we lacked aggression up front, we had one or two touches too many before shoting. We were less unselfish against Rennes. After that, things evened out. Leo [Jardim] reorganised the way his team brought theball out and Grandsir caused us problems. Mike made the save of the game by stopping the penalty, a deserved penalty. He made the difference. We had some good situations near the end, but their goalkeeper kept them out.”
SM Caen 1-1 OGC Nice 
Fabien Mercadal (Caen coach): “There are reasons to be satisfied with how we played, regrets about the result, we would have deserved to win. We opened the scoring a little late, we had to use a lot of energy to do that, and found ourselves on the back foot a bit for a time. We were a little less organised defensively, we dipped physically. But even after the blow of the equaliser, we managed to create a big chance at the end of the game.”
Patrick Vieira (Nice coach): “It’s a deserved point, I’m happy to leave for Nice with this result. We tried to play, even if it was difficult to create chances against a well organised team which didn’t give us a lot of space. We didn’t give up. By going with three defenders after the hour mark, we wanted to have more. Ganogo gave us more presence in front of goal when he came on. We lacked concentration in the fist half, we lost the ball too many times, too relaxed, not disciplined enough. We need a clinical streak, that’s something we have to work on. It was important to react, it’s a good reward for the players, who put in a lot of effort. We suffered in the final third, but there were also some good things.”
Friday, August 17, 2018
Stade de Reims 1 – 0 Olympique Lyonnais 
David Guion (Reims coach): “It was a difficult victory but one that we built towards. We played well in the first half, combining tactical discipline with a desire to hurt the opposition. I thought we deserved to be in front. In the second half we suffered because we were unable to keep the ball and lacked verticality. But we still tried to get forward and we had clear chances, even if Lyon created chances too. This confirms our good result at Nice. For a promoted side, to have six points out of six is marvellous and so we are savouring this. We know we need to be tactically disciplined. We need to defend well in order to attack well.”
Bruno Genesio (Lyon coach): “I am disappointed with the defeat but not with how the team played. We knew Reims would be well organised defensively, sitting deep. We conceded a goal from one of their two chances. We lacked pace and were not direct enough to surprise a side who were so well organised at the back. We tried everything, we never gave up, but we lacked a bit of spontaneity, a bit of spark when we had the ball. We didn’t get in behind their defence enough. It was going forward where we not good enough, it wasn’t to do with the system. We came up against a good Reims side, who have carried on the dynamic that took them to promotion and played just as well last weekend at Nice. We couldn’t find the solution.”
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