Zapping Goal! Football club Ligue 1: top 10 of the clubs financial results
“When you look at the standings, it hurts your heart. It is sad, damaging. The sadness comes from this place (19th) of course but not only … We wonder how this period can lead to an improvement. Today, Claude Puel must deal with certain executives in poor shape. We see it with Romain Hamouma who is not decisive as he should have been. We also see that Saint-Etienne is not helped by the arbitration even if we cannot hide behind that or behind the weather conditions to explain the situation.
When we redo the scenario of all the matches, we tell ourselves that Saint-Etienne is not in its place, that the Greens would have deserved a little better … Like its defeat against Bordeaux (1- 2) Saturday evening, ASSE missed key moments. The team lost another match within their reach against a direct opponent. There were deficiencies at the collective level. Saint-Etienne takes too many goals, almost two per game. There is a real psychological, technical and physical vulnerability in this team. It’s a real concern when you want to play the maintenance or rather the 10th place.
“We must not fall into catastrophism”
If there is sadness, we must not fall into catastrophism. Other large-scale teams with significant budgets such as Lille, Rennes or Monaco are also struggling. What is annoying is to have missed the boat against an opponent from the same championship. There, we will arrive at a very complicated schedule with Monaco, Nice and Lyon. We can think that the Greens are coming with a red lantern at the next international break. Hoping that the hole is not made with the others at that time. Now there is no point in slipping into fatalism or drawing hasty conclusions either. If we start losing in advance, we might as well not play the matches. Let’s play games with the best possible frame of mind first.
As at the end of the 2020-21 season, we will have to find real psychological springs not to relive the same galleys. Sometimes it’s a click or a grain of sand for the curve to reverse. Unlike last year, ASSE did not capitalize on entry before diving … We must quickly get out of the red zone. We must not forget that Saint-Etienne owed its salvation last season to the fact that other teams like Dijon, Nîmes or Nantes are idling. There, unfortunately for the Greens, the teams that we saw playing the maintenance (Clermont, Angers, Lorient, Troyes) were not won and even managed their start to the season rather well.
“Prince Ravichak? Before selling, you must first lock everything ”
In recent days, the news of ASSE has also been marked by rumors of the takeover of the club by Prince Ravichak of Cambodia. Personally, I think we have to be wary. Do not think that the savior is arriving in Forez, that Cristiano Ronaldo will come to Saint-Etienne … Before making a clean sweep and accepting the millions, you have to take the time to look at everything, to study everything. AS Saint-Etienne is part of the heritage of French football. We saw what the sale of Bordeaux had caused and where the Girondins are today in terms of DIY.
When you sell a club to someone who is totally unfamiliar with football, you have to lock everything down first. Sunday football fans, even the wealthiest, cannot improvise club leaders. Everyone agrees that Saint-Etienne has an exceptional team and tries again to play the leading roles. Me the first. But before that, we need solid guarantees. I prefer ASSE to play 10th or 15th place with the assurance of sustainability than to set off on a totally ubiquitous deal, without anticipation or built project and which can turn out to be negative over time … “
The ASSE chronicle by Denis Balbir
In sporting difficulty after its new defeat against Bordeaux (19th), ASSE is entering a critical phase with a difficult schedule. At the same time, the sale accelerated with the emergence of a Cambodian track. What Denis Balbir thinks.
