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LIGUE ONE: Another chance wasted...
Posted 03 Feb 2009 at 11:20 PM by Breton Bonnette
Tags grenoble, julian faubert, ligue one, lorient, marseille
Another weekend of failure…
…for the clubs chasing Lyon at the top. Lyon dropped two points after a 1-1 draw with rivals Saint-Etienne which bossman Claude Puel blamed on fatigue, but the title chasers failed to make up ground. A bit surprising for Lyon regarding their home form – it has been 4 straight ties and that tells me there’s something a little more than just fatigue affecting Les Gones. Bordeaux, however, sitting in second place and with a firm shot to overtake Lyon, struggled against Lille and had to count on Yoann Gourcuff’s equalizer late in the game to grab even a point at home. Les Girondins at least were able to put one more point between them and Olympique Marseille, who fell away at relegation battlers Sochaux. The only team to make up significant ground on Lyon was rivals Paris St-Germain. Veteran striker Pegguy Luyindula and Ligue One scoring leader Guillaume Hourau made sure that PSG were able to overcome a struggling Caen squad. Hourau now has 13 goals in 22 appearances, making Paul Le Guen look like a genius – bringing him back after two great loan stints with Le Havre. He’s already approaching Ligue One star status. Carlos Bocanegra and Rennes chalked up yet another shutout, but Les Bretons on the attacking end couldn’t get the job done.
The current top 5 in Ligue One looks like this:
Lyon – 43 pts
Bordeaux – 42 pts
PSG – 39 pts.
Marseille – 38 pts.
Rennes – 38 pts.
With the Silly Season closed out and French teams only allowed one domestic transfer for another month or so, let’s take a quick look at how Ligue One squads fared in the transfer window:
MARSEILLE
Sylvain Wiltord with the former team
Out of the top five, only one really made significant moves and it was mostly to respond to an injury crisis brewing. Marseille took a pretty expensive gamble on Shakhtar’s prolific Brazilian striker Brandao. They also brought over former French international Sylvain Wiltord from Stade Rennais, a happy move for Wiltord who couldn’t digest his contract and lack of production. First game out together, both Brandao and Wiltord partnered together up front, yielding nothing. Should be interesting to see how their inclusion affects Marseille’s run at a title.
LORIENT
Gabriel Obertan
GRENOBLE
Elliot Grandin
Trying their best to keep themselves up, Grenoble snapped up two young attackers in Marseille's Elliot Grandin on loan and U-21 German international Mustafa Kucukovic. Both should help ease the scoring woes that have Grenoble slowly slipping towards the relegation zone. With Daniel Moreira out until who knows when with a torn calf muscle, these youngsters are really going to have to make things work. Cameroonian striker Pierre Boya has also joined from Rapid Bucharest, a pretty tell-tale sign that Grenoble is focused on finding the net in the second half of the season. Without a proven goalscorer out of the trio coming in, it looks like it will still be a hard-fought battle to stay up.
Other than those three, the French transfer front was pretty quiet. Lyon, PSG, Saint-Etienne, Rennes - nothing but a lot of rumors.
Other news from Ligue One...
PSG and their new president, Sebastien Bazin, who promises to bring PSG back to the top in Ligue One. Eh, we'll see...what's the first step though? Get rid of Paul Le Guen? Bring in the youth?
Lillian Thuram, since his retirement (and before most likely) has turned down President Nicolas Sarkozy's offer to make him Minister of Diversity.
He's a former Bordeaux man, but is anyone else puzzled to see Julian Faubert's name on Real Madrid's roster? Did he even have much of a career with West Ham United?? Regardless, that must mean good things for Jonathan Spector.
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Bazin is silly here. It's silly to claim that you will be aggressive after the window is closed. Indeed, he does have one opportunity, we'll observe his aggressiveness with that one remaining opportunity, and weigh his claims appropriately.Posted 04 Feb 2009 at 03:38 PM by Mel Brennan 
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