Before the reception of Olympique Lyonnais in the Cauldron this Sunday, we all want to believe in a start from the Greens, the last one in Ligue 1. Matthieu Debuchy is in the same state of mind. The former captain of AS Saint-Étienne was the guest of France Bleu Saint-Étienne Loire this Thursday morning. After leaving the club last June, he is currently playing as a right-back at Valenciennes FC.
You arrived at ASSE in January 2018. Are you worried about the Sunday derby?
What is worrying is the situation at the club. This derby is going to be important and it’s not the best way to approach it. Now, I hope there will be a burst of pride and pride to win this derby. It’s important for the club and it’s important for the supporters. I still have a lot of contact at the club, since I lived three and a half years in Saint-Étienne. I know the players want to reverse this downward spiral. It can be the right match. We saw it two years ago, there was this victory in the derby and it was very good. Now we will have to give even more because the situation is critical. We’ll have to put your ass on the ground for 90 minutes and reverse the trend.
Shouldn’t we have kept players like you, with a little more experience?
Yeah, well, listen, we can’t go back. It’s like that. There is a choice made on the part of the coach. You have to accept it. It’s up to him to do his utmost to move the club up in this ranking by getting the most out of each player. For the moment this is not the case. There is still a lot of work to be done. But I hope the situation will be reversed quickly, because it is a club that deserves to be at the top of the table and it is really sad to see it in this situation.
Why couldn’t you stay in Saint-Étienne?
I felt very good in Saint-Étienne. It was the choice of the coach who explained to me that I would not have a starting place, but that would not have bothered me. I could have reclaimed my place by working. I could still have had this role in the locker room to supervise the players, it worked pretty well. It was not an easy time because I would have liked to do one more year. I took another path and the club too, and I wish them the best, starting with a victory on Sunday.
Claude Puel, the manager of the Greens, plays his place according to the result of the derby?
I think the club cannot stay in this situation forever. I think we have to make choices so that the trend is reversed, afterwards I am not in the shoes of the presidents. I have known the coach for a long time, I know he is doing everything he can to make things improve, and I hope everyone will do the same to make things better in the weeks to come.
- The ASSE – OL meeting will be followed on franceBleu.fr and live and in full on France Bleu Saint-Étienne Loire. Kick-off is at 8:45 p.m.