Team Focus: Bielsa Must Initiate Marseille Shake-Up to Stay in Ligue 1 Title Race

February has not yet come to its end but already, this felt like a pivotal weekend in the race for the Ligue 1 title – and Mevlut Erding’s late equaliser for Saint Etienne on Sunday night felt like a pivotal goal, as it denied Marseille a win at Stade Geoffroy-Guichard on a weekend in which their rivals Lyon and Paris Saint Germain both took maximum points. “Our title chances haven’t been reduced,” insisted coach Marcelo Bielsa in the aftermath, though he added that Erding’s goal “constitutes an enormous frustration in regard to the other results and the match situation.”

The word “frustration” is the one that sticks out like a sore thumb in that phrase; not just in the context of the match itself, but in terms of Marseille’s form and results in recent months. The timing of Erding’s late strike and the fact it left Marseille 4 points adrift of leaders Lyon can’t obscure the damage accrued over a number of weeks.

Bielsa’s side have now failed to win in 10 away matches in all competitions since the victory at Caen on October 4th, a run that has incorporated exits from both domestic cups (including losing to fourth-tier Grenoble in the Coupe de France) and costly losses in Lyon and Paris. During this spell only Marseille’s home form has kept them in the hunt. The late leveller ceded to Reims’ David N’Gog at the Vélodrome last week brought the need for smartening up their act away from home into even sharper focus.

It’s a veritable conundrum. One always expected the tempo of the first couple of months of the season to drop; this is a Bielsa team, after all, and maintaining his physical demands throughout the season is tough on any team, even one without a European campaign to juggle.

It may feel like Marseille have been less creative on the road in recent times, but that’s only partly true. The last five away games have generally produced relatively modest shot counts at Saint Etienne with 13 efforts (4 on target), 10 at Rennes (2 on target), 18 at Nice (3 on target), 12 at Montpellier (3 on target) and 10 at Monaco (3 on target).

It’s the lack of efforts on target that will trouble Bielsa. It is certainly what drove him to make a triple substitution just after the hour on Sunday, withdrawing André-Pierre Gignac, Jacques-Alaixys Romao and Brice Dja Djédjé for Michy Batshuayi, Romain Alessandrini and Baptiste Aloe.

The plan worked spectacularly, with Alessandrini and Batshuayi combining twice in three minutes shortly after to yield two goals for the young Belgian, turning around a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead (it was also Ligue 1 ‘s second-quickest double of the season after Cheick Diabaté’s brace for Bordeaux against Lorient in December). Bielsa’s counterpart. Christophe Galtier, suggested that the triple substitution precipitated “a lack of concentration” on the part of his team “perhaps tied to the fact that (the replaced) Gignac is Marseille’s top scorer.”

The statement might be factually correct, but all is not well with Gignac. He might have been dropped from the starting line-up for Sunday’s game after Bielsa sent him out of a training session this week but having started, he did little to justify the coach’s faith.

Gignac didn’t manage a single shot among his meagre 19 touches in 62 minutes, rating 6.09 for his night’s work. It was in keeping with current form. His overall record of 14 goals in 26 starts is a good one, but the 29-year-old hit 10 in the first 10, leaving an unflattering ratio since. His current run is one of 2 goals in the last 9 games.

Aloe’s introduction, it transpired, was the result of a misunderstanding, with Bielsa incorrectly believing that Dja Djédjé had declared himself unable to carry on (“a serious error on my part”, the coach said). Batshuayi and Alessandrini, however, were genuine game-changers. The former rated 7.94 for a cameo of 28 minutes that yielded 4 shots, 3 of which were on target. The latter got 3 shots in, provided the assist for Batshuayi’s second and counted a heavy involvement in the equaliser along with 3 key passes.

Their invention was consistent with the sort of energy we remember from Marseille at the start of the season, wherever the venue. Batshuayi should get more playing time, having started just three times in Ligue 1 since his summer arrival, while Alessandrini showed the form which wowed the French public in the first flushes of his spell at Rennes before a major knee injury. He has struggled at the Vélodrome, rating just 6.61 this season to date.

Just as Batshuayi can relieve a flagging Gignac, Alessandrini can do the same for the supporting cast. Dimitri Payet leads Ligue 1’s assist table with 10 but has laid on only 2 in the last 8 games, and was quiet on his return to his former club. Florian Thavin (1 goal and 1 assist in his last 9 games) was relieved by loan signing Lucas Ocampos on Sunday.

Bielsa’s defence, however, needs work as well. 17 goals have been conceded in those 10 winless trips. Latterly, that can be partly explained by the absence of their rock at centre-back, Nicolas N'Koulou (the squad’s outstanding performer with 7.62), who picked up a knee injury with Cameroon at the African Cup of Nations and has not played since. If – as reports suggest he may be – he is out for the rest of the season, Marseille have a problem, perhaps accentuated by Bielsa’s refusal to give Brazilian centre-back Doria a chance before letting him leave on loan to São Paulo. There is also an over-reliance on Gianelli Imbula, a defensive midfielder who is excellent at bringing the game into the opposition half (3.4 dribbles) but less so at making interceptions (1.2 per game).

Goalkeeper Steve Mandanda’s form is a concern too; he only rates 13th among the squad’s performers this season despite being one of their most experienced (and highly remunerated) players, with 6.79. He hardly covered himself in glory in the events that led to Erding’s equaliser.

There are more defensive tests to come, with Dja Djédjé and Rod Fanni both suspended for the next away game at Toulouse. Bielsa needs a rethink if Marseille are to remain in the title shake-up during March and beyond.

What is the main reason behind Marseille's drop in form? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below