A few days before the Champions League returns, we can’t say that Lille are in the best frame of mind. After losing (without consequence) in Prague and then against PSG before the break, Losc fell again on Friday evening, this time on the pitch of the last in the class, who had not yet scored a single goal this season.
This setback at Saint-Etienne (1-0) made the club president, Olivier Létang, lose his temper, and he was not gentle with his players at the end of the match. “The match we played is shameful, I am ashamed of what we offered,” he declared after this opening match of the 4th day of Ligue 1. You can’t be a great team by losing three matches in a row. We were warned. Two years ago, we missed the Europa League by one point and last May the Champions League by one point as well. There, we lost three points that we will never get back.”
Beyond the score, the Lille boss deplores the content of the match, the team’s lack of commitment, its general apathy. “I am the president of a club whose DNA is to always win. Did the players show on the pitch that they wanted to win? I cannot accept this, nor endorse or trivialize such unacceptable attitudes. We will explain ourselves among ourselves,” he warned.
While Losc travels to the Sporting pitch on Tuesday, they are not very well-informed in the championship, which worries Olivier Létang first and foremost. “I don’t care about the Champions League. What interests me are matches that we have to win. If some people have their minds on the C1, we won’t play it. Our daily bread is the championship and if we want to play in European competitions, we have to perform well in the championship. It is impossible to perform well by delivering such performances with such attitudes,” he insisted.
“A warning message for everyone to wake up”
“Last season, our away record was very average and now our start to the season is very average. We are on three defeats in a row and in Prague after the defeat at Sparta, I had already warned about the attitudes. This is a rant about that, he then recalled. We have four league games and six points. This is a warning message for everyone to wake up. For the moment, what we are doing is not at all enough.”
For his part, coach Bruno Genesio did not hide his disappointment either, considering that his team “had been too poor in the game to come back and try to win”. A reaction expected at the beginning of next week, therefore, in Portugal.