Dennis Appiah, Nantes player – Laurent Cipriani / AP / SIPA
- The Canaries, on an endless downward slope (13 unsuccessful matches), are in Saint-Etienne, this Wednesday evening (9 p.m.).
- Dennis Appiah experienced such a crisis in 2014-2015 with Caen and did not descend to Ligue 2.
- The Nantes defender believes that it is important not to assume that there are weaker teams than Nantes in L1.
The Canaries have been in a very unstable equilibrium on a thin line for several weeks. When will they switch to the relegation zone? Perhaps this Wednesday evening (9 p.m.) in Saint-Etienne. The
FC Nantes (17th in Ligue 1) have not won in 13 games and look like everything but an elite team for three meetings. “The players see the reality, the coach observes
Raymond Domenech. They know where we are, they know how long it has been since we won, how many goals we have scored… They are lucid. This is what creates the brakes. “
Since the arrival of the former coach of the Blues, the FCN has not advanced one iota in accounting, but also in the content of its matches. The two preliminary draws (0-0 against Rennes and 1-1 in Montpellier) suggested a real revival, but the (re) fall was brutal against Lens (1-1) and Metz (2-0). “I found that there were good streaks against Monaco (1-2) on Sunday,” notes Domenech. There is the corner in the 44th minute but otherwise we were solid, we gave them some problems. Very little, however. The Nantes coach more often than not continues to minimize the “purges” of his training.
Do not think that there is someone weaker than yourself
Dennis Appiah, always very lucid in front of the microphones and the cameras, wants to be inspired in particular by his rescue with Caen during the 2014-2015 season. The Normans were 20th and last at the break, but ended up 15th in the end.
The Nantes defender thus made a mobilizing and pragmatic speech: “If I go out ” we are going to get our guts out”, you will tell me that I will say it again. But if I come and don’t tell you anything, we wait, we go down, we stop training and we have fun playing football. We are not going to say “we are Nantes, we are more beautiful than the others”, it is not true, we are 17th, we are in difficulty, now is the time to get out of it. “
He obviously thinks the situation is complicated, but “that doesn’t mean you have to shoot each other, that you have to let go, do less, on the contrary”. And prohibition to tell Appiah that the competitors of the FCN (Nîmes, Dijon and Lorient) are less armed to save themselves. “If we think that the other teams are weaker than us, it’s a mistake, we will quickly get into a complicated situation, if not irreversible. “