"Release the hounds!" - Lille OSC official thread [R]

hopefully they'll be closer to full strength for 'pool. last night they had a tough match and very nearly didn't pull it off. hazard wasn't the only good dogue but he was their big go-to guy and fener wasn't going to allow that to go on forever... the ref could have pulled out a card sooner but it was a tough call. better to have multiple solutions but with so many players out... that also hurt them in the last 20 minutes, they were tired, starting to use poor judgement, miss passes... with gervinho and cabaye to put on things would have been simpler than with toure and vandam.

aubameyang looked ok in his first bigtime assignment, his mistakes were those of youth but the rest was very nice. the player who really impressed me was chedjou, solid as a rock.

 

Just checked UEFA.com and saw that Lille beat Liverpool 1-0. That's awesome! That doesn't mean anything just yet has the second leg has to be played at Anfield, but it's still a huge victory for Lille.

 

as i said elsewhere, liverpool is 6th in the EPL and i doubt they would be any higher in L1 if last night's performance is any indication. torres average, gerrard ordinary, kuyt invisible, insua and mascherano mediocre, and as for carragher... lots of famous names but very little quality play to go with the reputation. an announcer said something about a liverpudlian saying they had to be careful about lille being fired up because it's a rare opportunity for them to play a "great club"... cheeky if you have seen much of these two teams this season.

but lille understandably seems anonymous from a liverpool standpoint.look at what they've made their team from: a keeper cast off from PSG, a captain cast off from villareal, a point man cast off from lyon, lens and PSG! a midfield runner who couldn't crack the lineup coming out of the lyon academy, a centerback that was a park gardener 3 years ago! their big stars are a 19 tear old belgian and an angolan they bought for... 8M€!

OL might have put 14 players on the field in madrid who cost less all together than c. ronaldo, but that pales in comparison to the magic lille has worked.

rafa, quick to say the result was bad but that he was satisfied with the performance of his players, is in running for biggest liar of the week: he must have been furious with such mediocrity. he was ready to blame the pitch, the refs, injuries... shameless. the pitch didn't prevent the dogues from making a great arsenal imitation, and they were the ones robbed of a penalty (big lumbering ox carragher using up the last of his star credit with that obstruction) and a goal annulled for an imaginary offsides.

great club indeed.

 

understandably no one's eager to comment last night's match! a miracle was possible right up to the end but honestly lille deserved no better. the only players who looked ready for a match like this were daddy mavuba... and 19 year old hazard! even balmont and rami never looked comfortable, and players like emerson, cabaye and frau were just horrible. impossible to recognize the team from last week. toure and aubameyang were worse than useless. even after the second goal when there was nothing to lose and everything to win they continued to make it very easy for a liverpool side that really did come to play for once.

very simply a match to forget.

 

you mean against montpellier? yes, i've been saying MHFC was going to crack sooner or later; it turns out they're leaving that very late, but now it really looks like they'll fade. but the LOSC but also had me comforted they wouldn't be our worst problem in the homestretch, so last night looked very scary for the other clubs in the knot at the top.

 

i had mixed feelings all last night; my ideal podium was all olympic: O*, OL, LOSC. and at one point in the multiplex it was the mirror image of the 10 minutes of J37 when the sky fell on our heads: just before halftime Lorient equalized, OL went ahead, and sochaux was looking strong; and just after the pause cabaye's péno was stopped, sochaux equalized...

then things started to go too well (for lyon I mean): a second for us, lorient scoring, FCSM reduced to 10 men... they still nearly held on and the fact they didn't was the blot on the evening for me too.

i like fernandez, but i like lille, and the LOSC, more.

but someone else is an even bigger loser: bordeaux. not only are they completely out of europe, they're going to lose more players than you and for less money, plus their coach, and they won't even get fernandez to replace him. They're going to end up with elie baup.