Francky Dury successfully intervenes at Essevee, Cercle loses …

In other and better times, fans could say what they thought of their team in a café. Now they throw it on social media and it doesn’t always make people happier. The press officers of Cercle Brugge and Zulte Waregem announced the line-up of their team around 7:30 on Sunday evening. The reactions in both camps did not lie. Both the diehard fans of Cercle and Essevee had little faith that the chosen would give them points.

Cercle did receive positive news on Saturday from Didillon, Marcelin and Taravel, who tested negative and returned from quarantine. However, Paul Clement did not want to take any risks and did not like throwing a basic trio that had not trained with the group for two weeks to the lions. Although lions? Zulte Waregem has been a tame and scared creature throughout this competition. Essevee did not get to the bottom, but Francly Dury never got as much dredge on him in the past twenty years as in the past six months. And once the setup made it to the outside world, it was that again. Not a fan who understood why Dury put Opare, De Bock, Secq and Vossen on the bench. And with Dompé he had to miss all his most threatening attacker of the last few weeks. But an injured animal is often twice as dangerous. And that turned out not to be Cercle but Essevee.

Dury became big at the Gaverbeek with his system with high playing flank defenders, but in recent weeks there appeared to be wear and tear on his trick.

He hinted a few times that he realized that his chair was wobbling and that he was in dire need of a victory. So Dury took a different approach and chose five men in the back. Cercle is building a solid home reputation under Clement and has already beaten Antwerp, STVV and Ghent and usually with the necessary panache. It also got off to a good start on Sunday evening, with an immediate good chance for Ugbo. The visitors were still looking for themselves when Gory was allowed to kick a corner after six minutes. It is and will remain an eternal discussion whether it is better to choose zone or man. In any case, with Warleson, Cercle had a goalkeeper of more than 1 meter 90 in the goal and two long-shot central defenders with Bates and Raux-Yao. The latter is even almost two meters, but Tomas Chory broke free, the two giants of Cercle were asleep, Warleson remained standing and the Waregem striker headed in the corner of Govea perfectly.

A dream start for the tormented Essevee, but a flattered lead because via Vitinho and Hotic the association remained the most dangerous team. Bassem Srarfi felt good in the new role he had gotten from Dury. On the tactical board the flank attacker was left back but could be found just about everywhere and at Cercle they could not get a grip on him. The Tunisien was also at the basis of the second Waregem goal. Chory headed his cross via Vitinho to Gianni Bruno, who made it 0-2 against his ex-team.

Match played you think no! Essevee got away well when Dino Hotic’s looser seemed to fall into the square, but was processed into a corner via the crossbar? The injury of mister Essevee Sammy Bossut has now healed, but Louis Bostyn is doing fine as a replacement. He had to wait a long time for an opportunity but now seems to seize it fully. Bostyn avoided the 1-2 when he nicely neutralized Musaba’s shot. His reaction to Hoggas’s attempt was also welcome, but it could just as well have been 0-3 at the time. Thanks to the Brazilian replacement for Thomas Didillon. At the last minute, Steillon Warleson took the ball from the feet of star Srarfi with great conviction, who appeared only in front of him.

Ugbo softens, but Bruno delivers

That Clement would change was in line with expectations. Nobody had thought that he would pick up Kanouté. His replacement Omolo also barely fared better as a controlling midfielder and they kept fumbling in the back. This time Dury managed to keep his team in the organization well. We should have missed how things went now between Junior and his new sweetheart in the Planckaerts and just when we started to become curious about the denouement of Undercover, we woke up completely with the 200 people present. Hazard was not in the match again and that it had to come from Musaba, they knew more. Everyone heard Clement shout “in the box” and it did.

Ike Ugbo walked in very quickly and pushed the cross of the Dutchman perfectly past Bostyn. The fifth goal of the Nigerian, which again caused a match. Not for long, however, because just when Cercle was looking for the equalizer, it turned out not to be awake on a long throw-in from Opare, which was passed over the line by Gianni Bruno in two times. Relief everywhere at Essevee, where they can enter the international break with a good feeling. Cercle better fish Didillon and co again soon.