AS Saint-Etienne closed its first part of the season with a draw against AS Monaco (2-2) on Wednesday during the 17th day of Ligue 1. A rather honorable result for a team that has gone through a long empty pass for several weeks. After a thunderous start and seven points taken out of nine possible, the Stéphanois chained a series of seven consecutive defeats. Present at a press conference after the match against the Monegasques, Claude Puel returned to this rather delicate first leg.
“This first part of the championship was complicated. Complicated because we started very well, we had a balanced and very interesting team, it was logical to start in this way. After that we were very unhappy, we lost players either to Covid, or to injuries or because they were transferred. I am thinking of Mathieu Debuchy, our captain, who stayed away for seven weeks and of Yvann Maçon, who was our best player at the start of the season and who crossed paths. We had up to eight defenders out of eight injured, so we had to play back midfielders, launch young people who had not even played with the reserve. It weakened us, so we lost confidence. Lost confidence in our game, lost confidence either defensively or offensively. With the return of some like Moukoudi, Debuchy or Miguel Trauco, who has returned to a good level, it has allowed us to regain a certain defensive footing, to regain confidence and, once again, to play back matches full of character. And we are in this situation where for six games we have been very solid, very strong, very interesting. This is the course we must set for the return, recover well, keep this intensity, this will and always have in mind to want to move forward and progress in the relaxation to avoid a few caps goals“said the technician from Saint-Etienne.