This time, there was a match: after a week of serious events that led to the postponement of the Homme-Lyon encounter, the match between Marseille and Lille went ahead without difficulty on Saturday at the Stade Velodrome, but also without a winner or a goal. (0-0).
It was the next game and, if not unforgettable, it went off without incident and at least allowed us to get back to football after a terrible evening last Sunday, marked by images of a bloodied face at the hands of Fabio Grosso.
Six days after this match that was, in Gennaro Gattuso’s words, “a defeat for everyone”, he was winless on Saturday, which is fair enough, as Marseille and Lille were too innocuous to deserve three points.
The result, of course, suits the northerners better, and is undoubtedly more convincing on a collective level, who remain at the top of the standings (fourth place).
For its part, Marseille is still stuck in the middle of the standings (eighth place) and the late match on December 6 against Lyon does not explain everything. In fact, Marseille have only picked up four points in their last five tournament matches and have not progressed.
Gattuso’s work has paid some dividends, but it is not enough in attack, and Marseille has yet to win against a single team of his caliber this season, suffering defeats against Paris Saint-Germain, Monaco and Nice, and this draw against LUsc.
While he had not played for 10 days, and the win over AEK Athens gave the impression of a surge in strength, Marseille entered the game well on Saturday, positioning themselves high and very aggressive, creating several good situations, particularly through Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. (5th) or Jonathan Claus (23rd).
Aubameyang whistled
But Lille got back into the game well, with the constant provocations of Idun Zegrova or the inspirations of Jusuf Yazci, such as this ball from 40 meters that ended up on the crossbar after a very advanced and very dangerous restart from Pau Lopez, miraculously hitting the shot. .
The last chance in the first half went to Marseille, when Amine Harit wasted his recovery and a golden opportunity after a cross from Klaus (45th minute), but the impression at the time was that everything was under better control on Lille’s side.
The second half, which had been tense and balanced for a long time, was ultimately Marseille’s, but the only shots on target were from a shot by Jordan Virtue (46th) and a header from Geoffrey Kondogbia (88th).
At OM, the offensive technical fouls were too numerous to create a real danger in front of Lucas Chevalier, and even if the topic began to bother Gennaro Gattuso, Aubameyang’s performance, issued under unmistakable whistles, was still very poor.
Lille, for its part, did not offer much after the break except for a wonderful shot from Angel Gomez (80th minute), and Paulo Fonseca’s men seem satisfied with this point away from home.
The Portuguese coach also kept Remy Capela and Jonathan David, two of his attacking resources, on the bench for a long period. The Canadian striker, who was certainly demoted, only went into overtime.
For Marseille, next week starts on Thursday in Athens in the Europa League and ends on Sunday in Lens in the first round. We will have to try to gain points because if Marseille has already had a lot of problems this season, their standing is now another classification.
