Just two weeks ago, everything was going well for Stade Rennais, back in contact with European places and qualified for the semi-finals of the Coupe de France. The relapse would be harder. The Bretons have just had four defeats in a row, the last of which, Saturday evening at home against Toulouse, at the end of a performance “close to nothing”, criticized coach Julien Stéphan.
“It’s a disaster, we didn’t offer anything in the game, out of desire,” lamented defender Arthur Theate after the match. It was a purge, and we will have to have a burst of pride, because what we did was scandalous. »
“Liquefied in all areas”
The Rennes, however, opened the scoring quite quickly, through Désiré Doué (20th), but they never recovered from Casseres’ equalizer in the process (22nd). The rest of the match was nothing but suffering. “It has liquefied in all areas. First in the game where there was almost nothing, also in the area of aggressiveness, intensity, we lost a lot of duels. It’s a very bad match,” said Stéphan.
In the corridors of Roazhon Park, its president Olivier Cloarec did not have harsh enough words to talk about what he saw. “We showed a face unworthy of Stade Rennais, we deserved nothing other than a defeat,” he said, disappointed. We are speechless in the face of the team’s behavior, it’s hard to have explanations. It’s shameful what we showed. »
Stuck in 9th place in the rankings, potentially overtaken by OL who host Brest this Sunday evening, Rennes sees the specter of a blank season, far from the ambitions displayed given the quality of the squad and the recruitment carried out last year. last summer (Blas, Le Fée, Seidu, Matusiwa…).
“If we play like that, how do you expect us to hold on to Europe?” asked Theate. We have to wake up and then we’ll see. » The Bretons will now have two derbies in a row to try to get back on track, in Nantes then against Brest. Julien Stéphan expects from his team “character, at least, that it shows personality and above all more resilience in difficult times”. It will take at least that to avoid ruining everything.