Toulouse. Maxime Gilbert: “By playing like that, we won’t win a match”
The Toulouse center-half did not mince his words after the defeat at home against Nancy, last night (22-24). It calls for a reaction of pride and a general questioning.
Maxime, you only led three minutes at the start of the game before breaking your teeth on this Nancy team the rest of the match. How do you explain this poor performance?
We were simply catastrophic in attack. When we managed to find solutions as best we could, we missed six meters. On a draw the whole game. We are behind all the time, we have a hard time coming back (18-18, 46th, Editor’s note) but we never manage to get back in front (two balls of +1 missed in the last eight minutes, Editor’s note).
The whole club had yet checked this meeting against a promoted to finally take off after two defeats in the league …
It is a service that challenges. We all have to question ourselves. And quick. What we produced this evening, frankly… (he does not finish his sentence). We are saving the furniture a bit because our guards are making stops, but this is largely insufficient. The whole team needs to be seriously questioned because playing like that will not win a match.
Three losses in three games: you are far from your goals. Are you worried ?
I hope that we will not come back to the pitfalls of Toulouse, which sometimes knows how to be brilliant and other times to produce this kind of service. This happened to us last season. The month of September is clearly indicated in our objectives.
Should it be lowered today?
No no. We still have the ambition to grab the Top 6. We set this course together and it’s up to us to show that we can be worthy of it. Last year, we had a disastrous start to the season and in the end we finished in sixth place. We know that a season is very long and that nothing is over. There is no fire even if it will quickly be necessary to straighten the bar. The annoying thing is that you can’t build much with this kind of performance.
On Tuesday the Fenix will play its European future in Malmö after winning six goals in the first leg. In what state of mind ?
The next two weeks we will be on the road (after Malmö, the Fenix will play in Chartres, Cesson in the Coupe de la Ligue and then in Dunkirk, Editor’s note) and that will allow us to look each other in the eye. It is a good choice to live together during these two weeks, it can only do us good. On a small mattress compared to Malmö but you won’t have to crash.