DECRYPTION – After Lyon’s narrow victory against Nantes (0-1), discover what caught the attention of the editorial staff of Figaro.
TOPS
OL power 12
But where will Olympique Lyonnais stop? Paulo Fonseca’s men remained on eleven consecutive victories and trembled until the last moments before achieving a new success on the side of Beaujoire (0-1). Neither the red card from the Brazilian Endrick, nor the big highlight from Nantes in the second half destabilized the Gones, who were simply irresistible. This Saturday evening, OL – who also know how to win without shining – climb (provisionally?) on the podium in the championship standings, while awaiting the boiling Classic between Parisians and Marseillais, Sunday evening.
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Pavel Sulc still valuable
Arriving last summer from the Czech Republic, the Lyon striker continues to cause misery to Ligue 1 defenses. This Saturday evening, the 25-year-old scored his 10th goal in the league in the colors of OL, on a nice deflection in the opposing penalty area (25th minute). In the game, Sulc is far from being the most prominent but weighed on the Nantes defense throughout the evening. By also showing his defensive abilities and his volume, when the Gones were reduced to numerical inferiority an hour into the game.
Nartey, adaptation express
He signed up with Lyon two short weeks ago (January 19). And what an express adaptation of the Dane. For his second appearance with Les Gones, Noah Nartey (42 balls touched) was attractive within Paulo Fonseca’s system. Lively in his decisions, Noah Nartey showed valuable technical quality to bring the balls up the axis during a big hour of play. He also finished this meeting with 92% of successful passes. Like Sulc, Nartey demonstrated all his volume by multiplying high-intensity races at the end of the match, while Lyon was under threat of an equalizer. A very good pick for the Lyon leaders during this winter transfer window.
FLOPS
Endrick sees red
The Brazilian striker had a sad evening at La Beaujoire. From the start of the match, Endrick suffered heavy contact from Canaris who certainly wanted to show him their physical presence. His yellow card received after two minutes of play – for a foul on Abline, who went on the counterattack – gave the measure of the frustration of the young OL prodigy. In the second act, Endrick – ultimately rarely seen with the ball for sixty minutes – committed a very nasty foul on full-back Dehmaine Assoumani. A gesture which resulted in him being directly expelled, leaving his teammates outnumbered. After a thunderous debut under the Lyon colors (6 goals), the player on loan from Real Madrid experienced a first hitch.
The Canaries are drowning
Nantes (16th in the championship) remained on four consecutive defeats and was unable to raise its head at home. Matthis Abline and his team will have tried many times, without success, hitting Dominik Greik’s amounts three times. The Canaries thus offer Le Havre (15th) and Paris FC (14th) the possibility of widening a significant gap at the bottom of the ranking.
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Mohamed non-existent
One wonders if Mostafa Mohamed was on the pitch on the Beaujoire side. Established at the forefront of the Nantes attack, the Egyptian international had a difficult evening in front of his supporters. With only 16 balls touched and a poor 60% of successful passes, the Nantes striker was non-existent, before being replaced at the break by Youssef El-Arabi, who immediately showed himself to be impactful in front of the Lyon defense. Without finding the fault, the fault lies with an impassable Dominik Greif.
