Growling Gattuso struggles to rouse Marseille from zombie-like trudge | Luke Entwistle
Gennaro Gattuso, as a player and now as a manager, has always worn his heart on his sleeve, but as he ripped off his jacket in anger during Marseille’s 2-2 draw against Monaco, his attempts to conjure an emotional response to the apathy that this season has engendered seemed in vain.
It is difficult to dampen the footballing fervour in Marseille. Off the back of two draws in Ligue 1 and an elimination from the Coupe de France, over 63,000 fans still turned out to watch Saturday’s game at the Vélodrome.
However, a sense of resignation preluded what is one of Marseille’s biggest fixtures of the season. “I think before the match, everyone thought we were bound to lose,” said Gattuso post-match. Marseille looked willing to live up to those expectations in the opening minutes. Wissam Ben Yedder missed a chance in the opening seconds but got on the scoresheet in the seventh minute, finishing a move from back to front that met no Marseille resistance. More chances followed with Monaco rampant, but they couldn’t capitalise and in the 11th minute found themselves hamstrung with Guillermo Maripán shown a straight red card in harsh circumstances.
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Monaco were there for the taking. They had a difficult buildup to the match themselves – an announcement that owner Dmitry Rybolovlev was “exploring strategic alternatives for [his] stake in the club after receiving unsolicited inbound interest” was followed by a report that Adi Hütter’s position as manager was coming into question after a dip in results and performances. The death of club legend Jean Petit also hit the dressing room mood, according to midfielder Youssouf Fofana.
Disrupted off the field, and down to 10 men on it, they should have been easy prey for a team like Marseille. Yet the home side couldn’t capitalise, at least not fully. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang equalised with a scruffy goal-line tap-in, before Maghnes Akliouche restored Monaco’s advantage just before the break. “It’s every match, every weekend,” bemoaned Jordan Veretout at half-time.
Leonardo Balerdi’s long-range strike secured a point, which should have been three, and would have been if not for an open-goal miss from Vitinha in the dying seconds, by which time the visitors were down to nine men after Denis Zakaria’s late dismissal for a second bookable offence. “It’s a bit of a reflection of where we are at the minute, but we need to look forward. Today, I couldn’t have asked anything more from my players,” said Gattuso, whose intensity on the sidelines was not matched by his players.
With Marseille treading water, the Italian is the first in the firing line, but he isn’t the one primarily responsible for the club’s stagnation this season. “A phantom owner, a president out of his depth, and fleeing executives, just like this season, you’re rubbish,” read a banner unfurled by the Marseille fans.
Another statement from the Marseille stands read: ‘Owners, directors: is there still a project at OM?’ Photograph: Daniel Cole/AP
While the supporters point the finger of blame, they themselves have played a leading role in constructing an environment conducive to failure. In a now infamous meeting between Marseille’s fans and executives in September, Marcelino left the club after “intimidation, threats, insults and slander”, while president Pablo Longoria stepped away, though he did later return.
The club’s sporting director, David Friio, and the director of football, Javier Ribalta, also left, or “fled” in the words of Marseille’s fans, who neglected to reference the starring role that they played in their departures.
Marcelino’s exit created a hole that Gattuso had to dig Marseille out of, however, the Spaniard didn’t leave him a spade. In early October, Gattuso complained that his predecessor’s playing style continued to hinder Marseille, even in his absence. “I respect Marcelino and his staff, but he had a different style of play and I think that the players have 60 or 65 minutes in their legs to play a high-pressing game,” said Gattuso after a draw against Brighton in the Europa League.
Perhaps insufficient heed was paid to the difficulty in transitioning from one play style to another mid-season. It seems a glaring oversight, but not the only one. Gattuso inherited a situation where he not only had to implement a pre-season schedule mid-season, he had to do so while also keeping Marseille competitive on both domestic and European fronts. Injuries have been a natural byproduct of the start-of-season upheaval, with Valentin Rongier notably proving to be a big miss in midfield.
Gennaro Gattuso’s intensity on the sidelines was not matched by Marseille’s players. Photograph: Loïc Venance/AFP/Getty Images
Chancel Mbemba, Pape Gueye, Amine Harit, Azzedine Ounahi, Iliman Ndiaye and Ismaïla Sarr are also big misses. All of the aforementioned players have been representing their respective clubs at the Africa Cup of Nations – perhaps contingencies were not sufficiently made to offset the impact the tournament would have on Marseille’s squad.
All of this leaves the club in a docile, zombie-like trudge towards a season of mediocrity. “The team showed they were alive [against Monaco],” said Gattuso, but the apathy of his players, and the muted anger of the Marseille fans, whose criticism lacked its characteristic seething edge, tells another story. Resurrecting Marseille represents an enormous task for Gattuso, but the motivation to do so could hardly be greater. The club is still in the Europa League and can yet qualify for European football again next season – the Italian’s future at the Vélodrome depends on it.
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Talking points
PSG’s manager Luis Enrique said last week that he empathised with Jürgen Klopp, who cited fatigue as the motivation for his decision to leave Liverpool at the end of the season. “Managers are overexposed in terms of the media. We are always the first ones targeted when the results aren’t good. This overexposure is tiring,” said the Spaniard, who didn’t expend too much energy during his post-match media duties following a 2-2 draw against Brest.
“Because it’s football, not basketball,” was Luis Enrique’s curt explanation as to how PSG relinquished control of the game. Les Parisiens weren’t dominant in the first half, but thanks to goals from Marco Asensio and Randal Kolo Muani, they held a 2-0 lead going into the break. However, PSG were passive upon the return from the dressing rooms, Brest were reinvigorated and having halved the deficit through Mahdi Camara, they then secured a well-deserved point thanks to Mathias Pereira Lage’s sumptuous backheeled equaliser. PSG’s tendency to let games drift isn’t always punished, but it was at the Parc des Princes on Sunday evening, and it could be by Real Sociedad next month too.
Brest left Paris with an unlikely point having been 2-0 down in the 55th minute. Photograph: Jean Catuffe/Getty Images
Nice fans should perhaps start working on a French equivalent to the “1-0 to the Arsenal” chant, after Francesco Farioli’s side secured their sixth victory by that scoreline in Ligue 1 this season. The football hasn’t always been pretty at the Allianz Riviera this season. The first-half performance against Metz on Saturday drew boos from the Nice crowd and the onlooking Dave Brailsford and Jean-Claude Blanc had little to be enthused about as Le Gym lacked the tools to unlock a tight opposition defence.
However, as they so often have this season, Farioli’s side found a way and secured the three points thanks to Evann Guessand’s calmly-dispatched spot-kick. The result sees Nice cut the gap to PSG to six points, and while a title challenge may be beyond them, their defensive solidity and ability to scrape narrow results could be enough to secure a podium finish come the end of the season.
Pos Team P GD Pts
1 PSG 19 30 44
2 Nice 19 9 38
3 Brest 19 12 35
4 Monaco 19 9 34
5 Lille 19 10 32
6 Reims 19 1 30
7 Marseille 19 7 29
8 Lens 19 4 29
9 Rennes 19 4 25
10 Strasbourg 19 -4 25
11 Le Havre 19 -1 23
12 Montpellier 19 -4 19
13 Nantes 19 -10 19
14 Toulouse 19 -9 17
15 Metz 19 -13 16
16 Lyon 19 -14 16
17 Clermont Foot 19 -14 15
18 Lorient 19 -17 13