Death of a thousand cuts ..........

Ligue 2: Paris FC - Auxerre

I spoke about Paris FC, the trouble they were in and their need to start gambling ahead of their home game with Tours early last month ............
 

New home coach Jean-Luc Vasseur has now had a month in charge and took the team away for a three day training camp over the holiday, which he said was productive, but did not give him much time to work on certain aspects (defence ?) given the injury situation, he also spoke about the poor state of mind of the squad as a whole and that might take more time to address, but PFC do not have too much of that.

Early this month I updated their situation.............

Rereading those notes, you get the feeling that PFC head coach Jan-Luc Vasseur already knew the size of the task facing him, Paris lost that 3-1 and the only subsequent point that the hosts have collected was in a 0-0 draw with Sochaux, where you suspect the visitors were happy with a point and it seems like as soon as Paris open up, they lose, but now five points from safety, what choice do they have ? A point here and there is worthless and they simply have to get into that gambling mentality and stick with it, better to go out like a lion, than to suffer the death of a thousand cuts that occasional draws will bring.
 

Absolutely no lessions learned and they have largely continued with the same game plan, which was to keep games at 0-0 as long as possible and they try to steal a goal late in the game, I just do not get it, why give yourself ten minutes to win a game , when you are starting with 90 ? I am sure they would argue that is playing to their "strengths", but it is clearly not working and they are now eight points from safety, with time running out . Maybe the message has at long last got through, they went to leaders Nancy last Friday and were two up in little more than 50 minutes , they then not only took their foot off the gas, but decided to shoot themselves in it and were down to nine men (!) within two minutes of scoring the second and lost 3-2 !
 

I accept that would have been very frustrating, but now that they realise that they can put themselves in a winning position against such a strong team and that there is nothing to be gained by sitting back, surely we will see more of them offensively from here on in. Today they will be without suspended centre back Herve Lybohy ( see notes above) and defensive midfielder/central defender Mehdi Jean-Tahrat (0-0-3 in his absence this season), with right back Christopher Glomard and defensive midfielder Bongongui Ca still injured, they are very hard hit defensively, especially in that central spine.
 

Auxerre are 8th and if there were the usual three promotion spots, they would be firmly in contention, but this year there are only two and they are 12 points adrift, however, they are four clear of the team one place below them , a point is of no use at all and surely they will be looking to put together 3-4 wins and see how close that will take them, they certainly have nothing to lose and these points look up for grabs. They are unbeaten in four and their last three away starts have all gone "over" with both teams scoring in each. The Auxerre head coach Jean-Luc Vannuchi (pictured) said that he expects an open game and that his team are coming with only three points in mind, so he and I are clearly of the same mindset, great minds and all that !