Jean-Louis Gasset, the trainer of the Girondins. – Philippe LOPEZ / AFP
- Jean-Louis Gasset is still the coach of the Girondins de Bordeaux despite a terrible black series since January and a team today under the threat of demotion.
- The former assistant to Laurent Blanc still does not give up and his players have never completely let go even if the tensions are high.
- While the management of the club has disappeared, she does not have the financial means to separate from her coach who is still under contract until June 2022.
Who ? Yes, who would have resisted such a series of catastrophic results? Which football manager in the world can boast of still being in post after 13 losses in 16 games and as his team tirelessly approaches a demotion? At a time when we change coach faster than shirt (Thomas Tuchel if you read us),
Jean-Louis Gasset so is this man. This anomaly in the ruthless world of football. Next Sunday against Lens (9 p.m.) at
Matmut Atlantic, Laurent Blanc’s former assistant will once again lead Navy and White to the edge of the precipice and who are only two points ahead of the red zone two days from the end of the season.
Even the vast majority of supporters, long benevolent towards him, are increasingly asking the question of his replacement today. The Ultramarines, who have forged a special and strong bond with Jean-Louis Gasset, are still not asking for his resignation. Not the type of the house to put everything on the back of a man and for once, the boss of the Bordeaux locker room is far from being the only one responsible for the descent into hell of the Girondins since January. But still ! To date in terms of statistics, he is the worst coach the club has known with 54% defeats, 1.05 points per game and 19 losses in one season (you have to go back to 1960 to find an even worse record with 24 defeats) . So how can it still be in place?
Jean-Louis Gasset has lost 54% of his matches on the bench with the @girondins in official competition (20/37). Highest loss ratio for a head coach in Canadian history. @girondins ahead of Pierre Danzelle (50%). #FCNFCGB
– Football Stats (@Statsdufoot) May 8, 2021
Never completely let go by his players
It is above all the result of a conjuncture. First of all, the main interested party refuses to resign or rather to “cowardly leave the ship without any morals” as repeated by those around him. If he admits to feeling “despondency” after the defeats, it “lasts only a day or two” before he returns to battle. His relatives regret in passing the context in which Jean-Louis Gasset has evolved since his return to the club last summer between the extra-sporting situation of the Girondins de Bordeaux and the daily media pressure around a monument of French football adrift.
The coach of the Navy and White is also still standing because his players have never completely let go. Moreover, the rumor suggesting that some would have asked for his sidelining after the last defeat in Nantes (0-3) is false according to information from 20 minutes. It is difficult to believe in this desire for self-management when players find it difficult to simply say hello to each other.
On the other hand, the link is very loose with his group. The tension is sometimes extremely strong, like this altercation between a locker room executive and one of the staff members a few weeks ago. If the blows were avoided, the insults were heard. Others blame him for the lack of tactical work in training and summary match preparations where he insists exclusively on the state of mind and the fact of having “the casta” as they say at home. An old-fashioned management that has a lot of trouble getting through with this failing group. And as a reminder, incredible but true, Jean-Louis Gasset has still not fielded the same team two days in a row this season after 36 L1 games, often due to repeated injuries to his major players (Kalu, Koscielny, Otavio or Ben Arfa) but also sometimes questionable tactical choices.
A direction with absent subscribers
His maintenance on the Bordeaux bench, he also owes it to the unwavering support of his management. Frédéric Longuépée, the CEO of the Girondins and Alain Roche the sporting director, have never expressed the slightest doubt that he was the man for the job to save the club from relegation. Worse since the announcement of the withdrawal of King Street, the American investment fund that owns the Navy and White, this same direction has completely disappeared from the radar. None of its members have spoken in recent weeks as the Bordelais are heading straight for Ligue 2.
The silence of Alain Roche, emblematic figure of the club, questions. “It’s simple, there is no longer any pilot on the plane but just players and a trainer who hope to find by miracle an emergency landing strip to avoid the crash”, regrets to 20 minutes a historic member of the Girondins. As at the time of Paulo Sousa, Jean-Louis Gasset must assume everything alone in front of the press, for example. Today, failing to have been dismissed by his management because of poor results, he was abandoned by them in open country.
The club can’t afford to fire him
Finally, and it will come as no surprise to anyone, this is also a financial question. A leader admits: “Even if the club wanted to part with it, it would not have the means to do it!” “It is indeed difficult to imagine that when the Navy and White have just been placed under the protection of the commercial court and an ad hoc representative has been appointed to restructure the club’s debt which could reach 80 million euros. euros at the end of the season. With a monthly salary estimated at 120,000 euros, the dismissal of Jean-Louis Gasset and his staff could cost between 1.5 and 2 million euros. As a reminder, that of Paulo Sousa had already cost 2.6 million euros. It is therefore really not the time to make an additional hole in the body …