The Girondins of Ui-jo Hwang implore the sky at the moment. – Romain Perrocheau / AFP
- Plunged into a serious sporting crisis, the Girondins receive this Sunday (5 p.m.) AS Monaco on the 33rd day of Ligue 1.
- The Marines and Whites have the club’s worst point total in the 21st century at this point in the season as the most losses (16 in 32 games this season).
- As in the 2004-2005 and 2015-2016 seasons, the Bordelais risk playing the maintenance until the end.
The question eventually arose. It could not be otherwise after the 9th defeat in 11 Ligue 1 games of the Girondins de Bordeaux on the side of Saint-Etienne (1-4) last weekend. A new setback that plunges a whole club a little more into crisis.
15th in L1 with six points ahead of the red zone six days from the end of the championship before the reception of Monaco this Sunday (5 p.m.). Are the Marines and Whites experiencing their worst season of the 21st century?
From a global point of view, there is very little doubt. Between the financial situation of the club (a possible deficit of 80 million euros at the end of the season), the conflict between the management and the supporters and the latest sports results, the Girondins have rarely experienced such an important and multidimensional crisis. On the field, they had not known such a black series in Ligue 1 since 2019 (seven defeats in eight games to end the season with Paulo Sousa) and especially 2017 (ten defeats in fourteen games in the middle of winter with Jocelyn Gourvennec). It cost the Breton coach his place at the time.
Worst total of points and losses in the 21st century after 32 days
But this terrible series for the club is perhaps not the most striking figure. Indeed with only 36 points in the standings, the current team has the worst points total of the club in the 21st century after 32 days of L1. Even during the two seasons where the club played maintenance to the end, the Navy and White had obtained more points at this stage (42 points in 2015-2016 and 40 in 2004-2005). This team is downright one point less than last season when the championship came to a standstill on Matchday 28 due to the Covid-19 epidemic.
The Girondins are also on a sadly historic season in terms of the number of defeats: 16 in 32 games, it’s quite simply a new record over the last two decades! The previous one was from 2018 with 14 losses at this point in the season.
If it is not yet the catastrophe at the offensive level (6th worst since 2000 with 35 goals scored), the players of Jean-Louis Gasset are not far from another record on the defensive level. With 45 goals already conceded this season (including ten in the last three games), Laurent Koscielny and his teammates have the second worst defense of the 21st century behind that of 2018 (50 goals conceded in 32 days). A defense which however still held at the beginning of January the greatest number of “clean-sheets” (match without conceding a goal) achieved this season among the five big European championships. This is to say the explosion these last three games.
The sports crisis is added to the others
All this makes say “without any hesitation” to Florian Brunet that the Girondins are living their worst season for twenty years. “The figures attest especially that this occurs in the worst sporting period of the club (since 2018 and the arrival of the Americans). I think we have not experienced such a situation since the 1970s ”, adds the spokesperson.
Ultramarines, the largest group of Bordeaux supporters. Thibaud has been going to the stadium since 1994, he also collects the seasons. As for his elder, it is “the worst season” of the Girondins for a very long time because “there is absolutely nothing which goes in this club”. “It’s the souk on all floors with a sporting crisis that is added to the economic and identity crises,” he explains, “that’s where it’s different from previous crises. Even when we are going to seek maintenance on the last day against Marseille (in 2004-2005), we were better. The problem was sporting but structurally the club was much healthier than today. “
At the club, the former do not necessarily want to express themselves in this context and even less to make comparisons. One of them simply recalls that if “it’s a complicated season, it has already been much worse on the human level internally so for me, it is not the worst season! There, it is above all the general context that weighs everything down! “And yet, we will have to get out of it for the Girondins.