For Italian coach Gennaro Gattuso’s first match at the helm, Olympique de Marseille (OM) lost 3-2 on the Monaco pitch on Saturday September 30.
From Amsterdam to Monaco via Paris, with Pancho Abardonado then Gattuso on the bench, OM have conceded ten goals in three matches since the start of the crisis born from the anger of some of its supporters.
With two points taken over the last four days, OM sinks a little further, finding themselves 8th in the standings, five points behind the Monegasques, leaders on Saturday evening and who will remain so if there is no winner on Sunday between Nice and Brest.
Gattuso only has a few extra days of work to prepare for next week’s double meeting at the Vélodrome, against Brighton in the Europa League on Thursday, then against Le Havre on Sunday.
On Saturday, however, after thirty-four seconds of play, OM supporters wanted to believe that Gattuso was a magician. This is in fact the time it took Marseille to open the score, a form of feat since the kick-off had been given by the Monegasques.
They immediately lost the ball and Marseille therefore scored from the start, after a beautiful movement born from an inspiration from Joaquin Correa, extended by Jordan Veretout and Pierre-Eymerick Aubameyang, whose cross resulted in the second post, Iliman Ndiaye’s resumption of the right, completely missed but victorious.
Defensive largesse
But Gattuso was not able to correct all of OM’s faults in three days. Several of them – defensive generosity, space behind the midfielder – therefore logically resurfaced during a first period where the two teams each in turn attacked nicely and defended very poorly.
From the 8th minute, Monaco came back to score thanks to young Maghnes Akliouche. Ten minutes later, Marseille went back in front when Samuel Gigot, who was hanging around in the middle of the area from the previous corner, took a cross from Ndiaye (18th).
Five minutes more and Monaco equalized again thanks to Folarin Balogun (23rd), who hooked Amir Murillo and struck from the right to deceive Lopez after a nice pass from Akliouche in the middle of a defense that was again out of time.
Same fault and same punishment at the start of the second period: the Balogun-Ben Yedder duo, unprecedented but damn effective on Saturday, once again wandered into the very tender Marseille defense and Akliouche took the opportunity to score a double (52nd). The rest was disorderly and approximate and Marseille was never in a position to come back.
