A bit late but i've been BUSY! OK!? OL took the match very seriously, scoring early and often, giving National side Creteil Lusitanos none chance; the same can't be said for all L1 clubs: Lens fell to Niort, Toulouse to FC Paris, and Le Mans, Nice, Strasbourg and Monaco all needed either prolongation or PK's to get by. The MUC would have been the most embarrassed, as they were facing a club that plays a division lower than their reserves... whenever a topflight club a fortiori lyon, draws a club 2 or more tiers down, it's like a derby for the opponents, that's the magic and danger of these cups. anyway, there are multiple causes for satisfaction, starting with a very solid performance from coupet and a hat-trick from benzema: his 3rd was on a penalty but he'd had other very good chances, very good performances from him and HBA. baros started slowly but got into the match with an assist for benzema, and provided some deadly solutions in the second half that källström, benzema and toulalan didn't avail themselves of; in a 4-4-2 he may be a better partner for karim than fred, he really knows how to position himself in strike support. a good match from juni, and time for bodmer in the same role, it was classic OL, quick and fluid. Källström was excellent with lots of percussion, and makes a possible loan of fabio santos less painful to envisage. Toulalan gave his regular strong match, coming out 15 minutes from the end as a precaution for loïc rémy (who promptly gave up an unconverted penalty ). squillaci came out for paillot just before that for the same reason. the central defense looked serious, though not severely tested; creteil really only posed a problem on the wings, especially on our left where grosso was disappointing. with belhadj going to lens one wonders if something's on the books to double up that position, one would hope so. formation was a 4-3-3, but with baros it was the kind of 4-3-3 that's an uber-4-4-2. when rémy came in it was a 4-2-4 but by then it was game over. in the next round we meet croix-de-savoie, which by coincidence was the team coupet lost to in his CFA match a couple of weeks ago; he says he has revenge to take.
i think that if fred leaves he'll be glad to stay. being second striker translates into decent playing time as opposed to being third choice. he could only play for OL in a european cup, and in any case there aren't any qualified clubs standing in line for him. as JMA said a deal needs a buyer and a seller; Ol doesn't want to sell him and nobody wants to buy him, there was a bogus ASM rumor and RCL has already picked up maoulida... new development on the fred to psg front: may be in the form of a loan since psg doesn't have the shiny to buy him.
Maoulida is lousy. No surprise there. Capital Colony doesnt want to spend the big money. PSG would have been much better served if they were bought by someone else with more ambition. CC are proving to be a bit of a joke.
