AS Saint-Etienne : the Puel project leaves more and more skeptics among the Greens | ASSE News

Zapping Goal! Football club ASSE: the retrospective of the year 2020 of the Greens

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“It’s getting really difficult”

“Honestly, when we see the state of decrepitude of ASSE against Monaco, the difference in level between the two teams, the lack of background of the Greens, of technique, of automatisms, of character, of soul , it’s hard to believe that Puel is on the right track. On his arrival, the Castres had the merit of putting everyone back to work while some had fallen asleep on their laurels and their statutes with Ghislain Printant, and of launching young people. ASSE has reaped the rewards with the transfer of Wesley Fofana to Leicester. But since then, it’s been the berezina, and I did not wait for this new debacle against Monaco to express my deep concerns about the future of the club, its maintenance and the success of the Puel project.

Today, the report is there: the team, 17th last year, is 16th in L1 with 8 days remaining. She is not progressing. In relation to the initial project, there was the departure of Fofana and that of Xavier Thuilot, Puel’s right-hand man. There was also an additional Mercato with loaned players: Modeste and Cissé, after Retsos. And the club is in a sporting and financial situation which makes an extension of Puel difficult to imagine, while he has only one year of contract left and he receives 225,000 € per month with the results that the we know, 14 wins in 50 matches and a point / match ratio in line with that of Printant. There have certainly been two or three good matches, in Rennes and Angers, in Bordeaux, but overall, with only one victory in the last 13 matches at Geoffroy-Guichard, the trajectory is more worrying than anything else. “

Laurent HESS

Less and less…

… But, for lack of anything better, it is still the most relevant for AS Saint-Etienne in the short term. Obviously, subject to not being in the red in the race to maintain. Of course, the divide with some locker room executives is obvious. Of course, we do not see any noticeable improvement in the game or in the progression of the youngsters. Of course, some are confused by the way the Castres incorporates them into the team before putting them aside. After these observations, we must gain height in the coaching market and the club’s economic situation.

Which technician on the market will accept to take over ASSE as is? With what means to rebuild? Because the crux of the problem is there. Today, Saint-Etienne can not draw a line on the turn started, pay a big check to dismiss Claude Puel and reinvest in new players from outside to restart the machine. The Greens need a coach who is ready to work with young people. We must mature the promises of the training center, give them space and sell them to put finances in the red. This is the DNA of the building project entrusted by management to Claude Puel. A project which, for once, is not just a six-month or one-year vision.

Being a coach (or manager) of ASSE today means having to assume to ask for patience from supporters. It is also being able to cover in its image the possible failures of youth, the ups and downs of results and the fact of having become a bottom team. Claude Puel may not have the right personality, if only in external communication (and internal for that matter!), But he has a great capacity for resilience to difficulties. We saw it in Lyon and Nice in particular. He is one of the few to be able to embody this kind of risky policy with perhaps Julien Stéphan, now on the market.

Alexandre CORBOZ