Ligue 1, before OL – Bordeaux: “We are going to ask the players more”: Can OL still re-motivate its troops?

Seven days to limit damage, therefore. Fifth place, synonymous with the Europa League Conference, is six points away, and OL no longer have the right to make mistakes. To believe in an exciting end to the season, the Rhone club will have to do what it has never managed since last August: win more than three matches in a row, the pass of three having moreover only been successful once. time. And for that, it is necessary to remobilize the troops, shot down on Thursday, and logically dropped by part of the public, who more than scolded at the end of the meeting, and whose turns will ring hollow against Bordeaux, Sunday (5:05 p.m.), like the announced the Bad Gones and Lyon 1950 in press releases.

But how to take everyone with you after such a setback? Peter Bosz had a hard time finding the answers in front of the press. The Dutch coach is focused on the obvious: winning. “Are we playing the football that I would like? Honestly no, I would like more attacking, more aggressive football, with higher pressing. We are not going to play this football, but the football where we win the matches. So you have to be realistic rather than romantic for the last seven matches.” A realism that is greatly lacking in Les Gones this season, they who should have scored thirteen goals more than their current total (44) according to the model of “Expected Goals”, as indicated by Opta.

Win, yes. But it will be necessary to put the heads in condition to do it. The famous psychological lever. “For me, it’s a big challenge. I think that here in the room, there are few people who believe that we’re going to get there. And that’s where I’m the best. I’m not going to let go, I will push the players”, resumed Bosz. The position of the one against all, of the team that is buried too soon. This is what the Rhone staff could therefore rely on.

At the end of May, the time will come to take stock of the work of Peter Bosz and his staff, but also that of the management, with the resulting decisions. Until then, it is the players who will be on the front line. But between the elements at the end of the contract (Denayer), those who will leave loans (Ndombele, Emerson), those who have been announced on the departure for several mercatos (Aouar, Dembélé) or even the particular case Tetê, who signed for the end of the season but we don’t know if he will stay, it’s a safe bet that the motivation will not be easy to find for everyone.

Difficult, too, to imagine a team which has only rarely reacted to the many warnings this season – and even less for a place in the last four of the Europa League – suddenly finding this extra soul which it has been so lacking. Lyon still wants to believe in it on the face of it. But on Sunday, against a Bordeaux which is playing its survival in the elite, we will quickly see if the players approach, like their coach, this match as “the most important of the season”.