After the 1-1 draw away at AS Nancy the Champions Lille returned north for their first home game of the new season. Montpellier, under Rene Girard, decided to spoil their homecoming party; after holding off Lille’s attacking threat it was left to Olivier Giroud to stun the Stade Lille Metropole into silence and La Paillade kept their 100% record intact.
This was not a game Rudi Garcia’s men should have lost. Lille dominated the match from start to finish but couldn’t find a way past a spirited Montpellier defence. Controlling the game with over 60% of the possession, the home side had 17 shots to Montpellier’s 7 and a telling stat that shows their dominance is the fact that Montpellier didn’t win one corner, Lille won seven.
Key Performers
The man stopping Lille from breaking through, winning the Man of the Match award, is Montpellier goalkeeper Laurent Pionnier, six fantastic saves led to a rating of 9.1. Keeping his place in the Starting XI for the second game running, Pionnier’s excellent performances will make it hard for Geoffrey Jourdren to regain his place as MHSC’s number 1.
Leading the Lille attack was last season’s Ligue 1 Player of the Year – Eden Hazard, the young Belgium led the game with five dribbles, taking the game to his opponents for most of the match it’s no surprise that Hazard was fouled 4 times, more than any other player. Unfortunately the forward couldn’t turn his possession into chances, only managing one key pass and one shot on target.
Attack Zones
As well as Montpellier defended; the Lille attack became somewhat predictable. With 47% of their attacks coming down the right hand side it became easy for the Montpellier defence to hold strong. Montpellier won 60% of the aerial duels and seemed to deal with everything that Lille threw at them.
With most of the post-match talk focusing on Captain Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa’s performance, it was actually his central-defensive partner Nenad Dzodic that was vital to Montpellier’s clean sheet.
The Bosnian defender pitched in with 6 successful tackles, 6 interceptions and a whopping 12 clearances. In comparison Lille’s best defender was right-back Mathieu Debuchy, as well as bombing down the right to provide width to the attack he had 5 successful tackles, 2 interceptions and four clearances.
On the opposite side Franck Beria didn’t enjoy as much success, one of Lille’s worst performers with a rating of 5.31 he registered no successful tackles, no interceptions and it was the left-back that played Olivier Giroud onside for Montpellier’s goal. No surprise that Rudi Garcia quickly replaced him for Pape Souare in the second half.
Florent Balmont was Lille’s most involved midfielder, the former Lyon and Nice man started really well and was involved in the build up to every Lille move. Balmont led the match in successful passes (79)- the nearest Montpellier player to complete as many passes was Chilean Marco Estrada with 49 passes- however it was fellow midfielder Jamel Saihi that stole the limelight.
The Tunisian wasn’t far behind Estrada with 47 passes but it was his excellent pass over the Lille defence that led to Montpellier’s goal. Rene Girard chose to play the 24-year old ahead of Joris Marveaux and Romain Pitau and Saihi’s performance justified the decision. The midfielder played superb at both ends of the pitch, making some excellent tackles and helping MHSC break forward.
Tipped by some for relegation, Montpellier now have six points from two games and have shown that they can take the game to teams while at home and also go away from the Stade de la Mosson, soak up the pressure and hit on the break. With Olivier Giroud in the side there is always the chance of goals and Rene Girard has set up his team in a way that is hard to break down.
Next week Lille travel to Normandy to take on Caen, who are another team with a 100% record. They will have to face Pierre-Alain Frau, who scored a few vital goals for them last season and is not the sort of opponent you want to take on when you are struggling for form.
