The tactics for Lyon were all wrong. I can never rember Lyon playing 4-5-1 in recent years & a Champions League match against Barcelona is not the time to test it out. Benzema was totally isolated & got no support & Ben Arfa who was there most creative player against Menz was left on the bench. Perrin is a very negative manager is not up to the job.
wow. what a disappointing game. for Lyon to have so few shots on goal was a bit of a shock to me. i don't think i've ever seen them so thoroughly dominated and beaten before. they played better in the second half and after keita came on there were some bright spots but over all Barca were just better in every way. i think the defence did a horrible job of covering Messi, there was so many incidents where he was completely unmarked in front of goal and he could have easily scored 2 or 3 more goals, although the sliding save by a lyon defender (bodmer?) was beautiful to watch. i was annoyed when Perrin took Benzema off the pitch instead of Govou. Ben Arfa and Benzema have proven that they have a special understanding on the field. Lyon were already losing at that point and Govou wasn't contributing enough to the attack, why leave him on the pitch instead of Karim?? I thought Vercoutre had a good game, he was more confident in his play and cant be blamed for any of the goals. Juninho could have turned the game around had he scored on the freekick in the first half....but what are you gonna do?
I agree with almost all your analysis. I am sorry you and all the other Lyon fans are disappointed, though take care of business against Rangers at Gerland, and things will get better. I hope Domenech is disappointed enough that he stops calling up Clerc, though to be completely objective, none of Les Bleus except Abidal were that good.
I cant help but feel that it would have been a closer game if Cris had been playing instead of Bodmer. That mis-timed sliding tackle that he made which led up to Henry's goal just struck me as a bit of a symbol for the match.
I wouldn't blame Bodmer really, the game was over then, while I thought that he and Squillaci were among the better OL players, though that wouldn't be saying much. In any event, Rangers don't have a Leo Messi, and the OL defense will face a guy they're familiar with in Jean-Claude Darcheville.
Well I missed the last half an hour because of my bitch girlfriend. Two goals. I see Messi finally got on the scoresheet. That guy missed so many clear cut chances. Henry applying the coup de grace. What frustrates me is that why the hell were Lyonnais playing so damn defensively EVEN when going behind? I just felt if Lyonnais had given Barcelona a more entreprising match they could have got something. It leaves a very bad taste. When you are 1-0 behind at least have a go because there is nothing else to lose anymore but Barcelona still looked more likely to score with Lyonnais doing nothing in attack. I think Lyonnais deserved this for being so tactically naive. Sorry Inara.
One word: uncompetitive. I'm getting to the point where I think it might be better to concentrate on winning the league. This one wasn't even close.
My gf is in class every Wednesday, and I always take her out to dinner afterward , speaking of which, I have to go, though again, sorry to all the Lyonnais. If I had to choose a lineup for an upcoming Champions League game, I'd choose a lineup like this: (The following assumes that Fred is either injured or not healthy.) Benzema Ben Arfa-Keita (Ben Arfa as "second striker," Keita in same role but more to the right) Källström-Juninho-Toulalan Grosso-Squillaci-Bodmer-???? (hopefully a player who does better than the full backs today) Vercoutre Essentially it's a 4-3-3 or 4-5-1, though the key is the invention/ingenuity that will come from both Ben Arfa and Keita.
This is exactly what i am beginning to think, of course the guy is not a tactical genious but he has shown interesting things in the past with other teams but isn't Lyon a bit too high profile for him? How on earth could he think of such a tactical scheme: defending close to our goalie and counter-attack ? This is insane Lyon is and has always been an attacking team the only way to play against Barça is to play high on the pitch pressuring high and often the opponent. The guy has been crying in the press because he wanted more attackers which Bernard Lacombe didn't want because he thinks Karim Benzema is ready (8 games, 7 goals who was right ?) and he just freaks out and decide not to use his best attacking players to produce the most defensively oriented team i have seen for a decade... It's not a mistake it's a failure form A. Perrin. I don't mind getting smashed once in a while against good teams but we didn't even play that match... Perrin completely forgot about our philosophy and negated Lyon true essence.
to go from 5-1 against Metz to 0-3 today is like emotional whiplash. but i think Lyon can still do good things in the tournament. they need to learn from this game and start playing more offensively and take more risks. Perrin was schooled today but maybe he'll be better off for it.
My girlfriend cooks me dinner. Take her out for dinner? Ermm..Nah. You are right though. I would play the 433 as well. I do not know what Perrin played today but is was awful. He got is wrong too much. None of the outfield players had a half decent game and the strikers were isolated or just helping out defensively. It was disheartening. I hope Lyonnais can pick it up for the next match.
Today’s loss was completely tactical. There isn’t a single player I can pick out and say he played badly because you could tell that Perrin had told all of them, “defend defend defend.” Out of the three starting fullbacks today, only one was played in position (Clerc). Except Clerc is not the kind of defender you use against Barcelona. Clerc is for teams who don’t have very dangerous left wingers. Reveillere is more solid defensively and would have had a better time dealing with Abidal and Henry. Lyon hardly ever saw the ball, so Juninho and Kallstrom couldn’t do anything with it. Benzema couldn’t attack because he hardly got any service, and both Govou and Belhadj spent the majority of the game defending. I don’t think Toulalan was ever more than 15 yards away from Vercoutre. As for Vercoutre, he was definitely Lyon’s Man of the Match. How sad. I am not angry with Clerc for the own goal because if he hadn’t made contact with it, Milito would have take the shot, and Clerc had some good moments during the game (he was the one with the cool sliding save on Messi’s second attempt). Nor am I angry with Bodmer for Henry’s goal because he’s not a defender. Let’s be honest – Barca could have been up 7-0. Belhadj should never have been on the pitch. I think Perrin was thinking about the times when Houllier used to use Clerc as a RW when he wanted extra defense, but Clerc always had Reveillere behind him. Belhadj had a RB behind him, and again, it was too defensive. As for Juni’s free kicks, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him be so off target with ALL his fks. You could tell he was stressed and nervous and uncomfortable. He couldn’t be our playmaker because he hardly got to play! The thing with Barcelona is that they know their weakness is their defense, so they just attack all the time so the ball is never in their own half. Perrin fell for that hook, line, and sinker when he decided to field a defensive team. Lyon would have been better off doing their own thing. Had they taken the initiative and taken the game to Barca, the result would have been different. In fact, the few moments Lyon did take the initiative, they looked good. They made some great movements and strung together some decent passes. You could tell that Barca got nervous during a few moments. But as soon as we lost the ball, we panicked and couldn’t handle their counterattacks. Even after the own goal, Lyon still had a chance, and I thought that maybe we could score a goal. But Perrin must have told the players at half time to be happy with the 1-0. And wtf was up with his substitutions? He put in Baros, which was fine. But then he took out Benzema and put in Ben Arfa. What is Ben Arfa going to do? He’s never even played with Baros before. And then Keita in the last five minutes. Seriously? Lyon are not a team built for defensive play. We’ve learned that many times during the Houllier and Santini eras. Remember the losses to AC Milan two years ago, as well as to Marseille last year in the French Cup? Lyon don’t possess the kind of players who are good at having ten men behind the ball. It’s just not who we are. That’s like asking a team like the Rangers to play attacking football. In the grand scheme of things, we can say that a loss here was expected anyway, and it will be important not to lose points at home as well as pick up an away draw at either Stuttgart or Rangers. But this defeat will hurt the team mentally, and I’m sure they are doubting themselves. When OL lose confidence, it’s a very bad thing. I know Lyon is capable of more than what they displayed tonight. Maybe we would have lost anyway, but we should have gone down fighting. Today just brought back bad memories of the Roma match (though at least we didn’t loose 7-1). Anyway, cheers to Barcelona for being classy. There is a reason why they are CL contenders, and tonight they showed why. I posted this on my blog too, so sorry if some of you read it twice.
Barcelona Team Statistics Lyon 3 Goals 0 1 1st Half Goals 0 8 Shots on Target 0 3 Shots off Target 2 5 Blocked Shots 4 8 Corners 4 6 Fouls 16 6 Offsides 3 2 Yellow Cards 0 0 Red Cards 0 87.8 Passing Success 87.1 32 Tackles 35 75 Tackles Success 82.9 59.7 Possession 40.3 55 Territorial Advantage 45 Source: Skysports We had nearly three times as many fouls as Barca, yet they got carded twice and we didn't. Weird but that's one piece of good news. Also good to see that our tackle and passing was good. Horrible shots on goal stats though.
aie, that smarts! OL's real mistake was to watch barça play too much for the first 20 minutes. they needed to raise the physical level of the game a couple of notches; once we got into a technico-tactical battle the bluagrana were a cut above, and that difference was insurmountable. for long periods we were able to play right along with them, and i could tell myself the difference between the sides was one own goal, that a 1-1 nil was possible, even likely, but in the end barça were, perhaps not a class, but definitely half a class superior when it counted. At 3-0 the bill is a bit steep, but 2-0 was a deserved margin, and shows the ground we need to make up to do anything in europe this year. even in the midst of disappointment there can be real causes for satisfaction; for OL they are the play of belhadj, of whom we have seen little this year, and vercoutre, who played a solid game. he can bear partial blame for the last goal but on whole did all one could expect. there are also a couple of individual disappointments; juninho had three chances to put in his special, and none of them was even close. even sadder was the very poor match by benzema... he saved his first ever poor performance for OL in the one match where he wanted to do best, and he must regret it bitterly. but for him, and for us, there will be brighter tomorrows.
hard to argue with any of this, but karim did get a few balls and chewed them all up. this was barça not metz, and he had to do better with the chances he had. i was surprised by the lineup, but the only thing i would have changed was start ben arfa instead of clerc (rvr in place of clerc, belhadj in place of rvr and benarfa in place of belhadj) the problem wasn't the strategy but the respect the players showed barça... toulalan once took the ball right from ronaldinho! of course that's not going to happen very often, but they had to get in and dig for the ball a lot more... this bears repeating: they had nothing to lose! yes, one of the eternal whatifs of this match would have been a healthy cris (not so much coupet it turns out) and a still injured messi... sigh... that cross came from belhadj... contrary to Inara i think he had a very good match, and with ben arfa in fromt of him instead of rvr behind him the whole physiognomy ot the left side and perhaps the match might have been very different.
Two or three statements are pretty explicit: J.-M. Aulas: "Perrin has rolled dice and obviously he didn't win" Juninho: "It's a great disappointment, we were used to play the same way [read attacking football with the purpose to win] everywhere and against anyone" This is the worst game and tactic i have seen for the past 8 years, above all Perrin ruined tactically what Lyon game has always been in the past event when talent was lacking. Angel Marcos analysis is brillant but i am too lazy to translate it today: Foot - C1 - Marcos: « Lyon loin de ses valeurs » Pour notre consultant Angel Marcos, Lyon a perdu à Barcelone (3-0) en creusant sa propre tombe. L'équipe a tellement cherché à s'adapter à l'adversaire qu'elle en a oublié son identité de jeu, au point de subir la bataille du milieu. Celle qu'elle gagnait le plus souvent, dans un passé récent. « Lyon et son entraîneur, avant de se rendre à Barcelone, ont essayé d'analyser les faiblesses de leur adversaire et d'en profiter. C'est une évidence et un souci légitime au haut niveau. Mais fallait-il le faire au point de changer l'idée générale de sa propre équipe, son identité, ses habitudes ? C'est la question que pose cette nette défaite. Le score est large mais il est vraiment, vraiment minimal par rapport au contenu de la rencontre. Alain Perrin avait choisi de modifier tout son côté gauche pour contrer Messi, en changeant le latéral et le milieu. Mettre un droitier (Réveillère, plutôt que Grosso) pour contrer un gaucher est une bonne idée, cela permet au défenseur d'être sur son bon pied quand le joueur offensif rentre dans le terrain. Mais en plus de ça, Lyon a aligné un milieu gauche sans expérience (Belhadj), qui était la plupart du temps latéral gauche l'an dernier à Sedan. C'est un joueur qui a de l'activité et qui pouvait envisager de contrer Zambrotta en occupant l'espace laissé par Messi, mais l'équipe ne joue jamais comme ça... En plus, le losange habituel du milieu a, lui aussi, été modifié, alors que c'est dans ce secteur que Lyon avait bâti son pouvoir, sa capacité à empêcher les autres de jouer. Ce losange, c'était Essien ou Diarra ou Toulalan en axial défensif, puis deux joueurs, Juninho d'un côté, et Källström ou Tiago de l'autre. Là, Lyon s'est tellement focalisé sur le fait que Xavi et Deco allaient monter que Toulalan a été décalé pour les contrer. Juninho l'a remplacé dans l'axe, mais il joue naturellement plus haut, donc ça n'avait plus rien à voir. Cela a totalement déséquilibré le milieu, et le seul recours était de reculer. Ainsi excentré, Toulalan n'a pu récupérer autant de ballons que d'habitude. Juninho a couru après le ballon, alors qu'il est bon quand il l'a. Il s'est fatigué au point de devenir transparent. Källström ne pouvait pas compenser ça tout seul. Ce choix, surtout, a permis à Barcelone de jouer. Même si les cinq premières minutes ont montré que Lyon avait envie de gêner l'adversaire en jouant haut et sans complexe, il a reculé petit à petit. Résultat, il a laissé 70 mètres de terrain libre à Barcelone, qui s'est ainsi retrouvé dans la zone de vérité sans beaucoup d'efforts. Or, pour gêner Barcelone, il faut perturber l'équipe au départ des actions, empêcher la connexion entre le milieu et les attaquants, pour ne pas placer facilement ses meilleurs joueurs près du but. Barcelone a solutionné, grâce à Lyon, une partie de ses problèmes. Or, quand cette équipe est à 30 mètres du but, l'adversaire finit par craquer, mécaniquement, car il y a tellement de participation, d'habileté technique dans les petites espaces, que c'est injouable. Ça n'a pas coupé, il y a eu des occasions à la pelle. En fait, Lyon a subi ce qu'il imposait dans le passé aux autres équipes. Ce match a fourni un autre sujet de réflexion. Il est incontestable que Barcelone a levé le pied physiquement dans les vingt dernières minutes. Alors, Rijkaard a sorti un milieu défensif (Xavi) pour un attaquant (Giovani). L'équipe a voulu aller au bout de ses convictions. La meilleure façon de défendre est encore de tripoter le ballon loin de son propre but, de le faire circuler et de ne pas s'épuiser à défendre. Lyon, sur le même modèle, a intérêt à vite retrouver ses vraies valeurs. Quand on a des joueurs comme Juninho, c'est mieux d'obtenir des fautes à 25 mètres du but qu'à 70... Barcelone, avec un Ronaldinho très moyen, et un Henry pas au point physiquement, qui découvre en plus le jeu court du Barça, semble capable de retrouver le niveau qui était le sien. » Source: L'Équipe
very good analysis from Mr. Marcos as always... when i didn't see a column from him following france-scotland i was afraid l'équipe had bundled him off; happily not, he's the best thing they've got going. it's an analysis that is diplomatic and leaves hope for the future. basically he says, and i agree, that a) OL had the possibility to do better and b) perrin's tactics proved unfortunate but were not "n'importe quoi", which means hopefully he'll learn from his mistakes too. he had more firepower at hand than he's used to, and has to give the horse its head.
I don't think Belhadj played badly, but he was unnecessary in that position. He's a defender, first and foremost, and his first instinct is to track back. If Ben Arfa had been there, his first instinct would have been to go forward. He did the best he could, but I think all the players had their hands full last night and couldn't support each other. Just sad, really.
Aulas criticizing Perrin is funny because Aulas and his meddling ways is the reason they cant higher a better manager than someone like Perrin.
What can I say huh? Barca really bent us over their knee yesterday. Judging just from the first 20 minutes I can not say I was surprised by the scoreline. It's been a long time since Ive seen the club so unorganized. Brief flashes (brief!) of fludity, lumped in with alot of terrible passes. I actually think the scoreline was a bit flattering to be honest as we could have eaisly lost this game by 5 goals. I can't even believe i'm typing this, but its true. And I think everyone is correct in their assesment that this was a tactical blunder that got us played off the park. With the mighty power of hindsight, It would have been markedly better with Belhadj instead of Clerc, and Ben Arfa instead of Belhadj. Not saying would would have won, but we would have been much better. I could be jumping the gun in saying that Perrin does not have the pedigree to coach at this level quite yet. Though I already said it when we signed him.
Ive been fantasizing about how the game would have played out with Deschamps at the helm instead of Perrin. Not that it cheers me up or anything but its fun to think about.