what end of the season for Monaco?
Seventh in Ligue 1, eight points from the podium, AS Monaco are far from their goals at the start of the season with nine games remaining. If the results crisis was mitigated by the success against Paris (3-0), the princely club is not swimming in calm waters.
Beating the championship leader (3-0) before the truce allowed AS Monaco to breathe and get back on a good footing. But when facing Metz, if the speech remains optimistic, it should be noted that the Monegasques have not won the slightest match in return for the international break this season and that they still experience difficulties against low blocks, which supposed to offer Lorraine on Sunday (3 p.m.). Confidence is feverish, the need to string together urgent results, a poor performance at Saint-Symphorien would plunge the club and its leaders back into doubt.
Lowered goals…
Four points from the first ticket to Europe, eight points from a known third place last year and nine from direct qualification for the Champions League, the Principality club is not dropped but the goals of the start of the season seem almost forgotten. Dismissing Niko Kovac had become necessary, we explain internally, because something had broken with the Croatian technician sometimes considered too military in his working methods. He had alienated some members of the locker room, cold with the performance division and who were blamed for a lack of ambition in major events.
At the dawn of New Year’s Eve, the ex-Bayern Munich coach had left and the duo Paul Mitchell-Oleg Petrov had appeared in front of the players on the lawn of Louis II explaining that the major objective of the season was a qualification in the Champions League, that as long as it does not work, there will be change. After a catastrophic month of March crossing off the club’s objectives one by one on the list of priorities (getting closer to the podium, winning the Coupe de France, doing well in the Europa League), the ambitious speech seems to have taken the lead in the Wing to the point that a fourth place would be seen favorably at the end of a season which will have gone through, whatever happens, areas of turbulence.
“We know that the teams in front of us have a long lead,” acknowledged Benoît Badiashile before facing Paris. “We must not hide the face, the Champions League will be too complicated so we will try to grab at least the European places.”
…before a planned reorganization?
In the viewfinder of the supporters, the sporting director Paul Mitchell, subject of many banners before the truce during the match against Paris-Saint-Germain which had filled Louis II: “We say thank you who? Thank you Mitchell”, “You came to parties ?” or “Rise, Risk, Repeat… Fail” in reference to AS Monaco’s new slogan. Since his arrival, the Briton has not distinguished himself in terms of recruitment, if the words patience and adaptation can be heard at the start of the season, they are no longer really digestible as the final sprint approaches. Alexander Nübel, although in progress, causes ASM followers to sweat when he is about to play on foot, Jean Lucas has been more often disappointing than decisive, Ismaïl Jakobs struggles to find playing time just like Myron Boadu, hampered by injuries.
Only Vanderson, who arrived this winter, has given full satisfaction in recent months. In the negotiations, the sporting director is also struggling. At the end of the contract this summer, Djibril Sidibé has still not extended while Cesc Fabregas should, except surprise, leave the Rock. AS Monaco will not be able to retain Aurélien Tchouaméni either, called by the most beautiful European sirens. As for the young players, some were able to sign their professional contract two months ago (Akliouche, Decarpentrie, Okou), all from the 2004 generation while some talents from the 2002 generation are preparing to leave the Rock free. If he says he puts pressure on himself “every day”, the Monegasque sports director is not worried about his position.
A few days ago, in the columns of The Team and Nice morning, he claimed to speak “regularly with the president. He knows that we are building over time. My job is to do a lot of things, it is not limited to the result of a match or a season”. However, according to the publication of The Team Before the match against PSG, Dimitri Rybolovlev, angry, would have decided to change everything. In the entourage of the president, it is explained that the oligarch is capable of bloodshed but that the truth of the day is perhaps not that of the next day. For its part, the club had also denied the information of the daily. However, a reorganization is expected and the kind of Russian president, Juan Sartori, could have new responsibilities. The Uruguayan senator, married to Ekaterina Rybolovleva since 2015, joined the board of directors last November.
Seen several times at the La Turbie training center and at the Louis-II Stadium, the native of Montevideo sits on the board of six different companies like the English club Sunderland (third division) of which he owns 20% of the shares. . Business school diploma in Lausanne after arriving in France at 12, the boss of one of the largest agricultural companies in Uruguay is on the way to becoming Dimitri Rybolovlev’s man in the field even if at AS Monaco , there has only been one boss since 2011, the president.
Concerns and misunderstanding at the training center
If vagueness reigns around the management of the first team, the Academy is also impacted and Paul Mitchell’s speech is not to everyone’s taste. Lamented, his attitude considered colder sharp with the courtesy he showed the first months after his arrival. The Briton explained in the press, satisfied, that today there were “nine players from the first team from the training center”. Indeed, new faces have been showing up at the professional team’s training sessions in recent months, such as Maghnes Akliouche, Félix Lemarechal and Yllan Okou. “But none of them play regularly apart from Badiashile,” complains a source close to the club.
“Mitchell says he wants to put the Academy back in its place when we are one of the best French centers. There is a lot of pretending, communication without acting. It’s wind.” There was action, however. Bertrand Reuzeau, director of the Academy between 2016 and 2018 before returning in July 2019, was dismissed from his post at the end of February without explanation. The dismissal of the one who saw the Badiashile, Matazo, Akliouche or Okou grow up today elements of the professional group is partly explained by the arrival of the Belgian Pascal De Maesschalck, director of development of young players, last September. The management wanted to put in place a new method around the former head of the Bruges Academy, but the current does not pass with everyone reproaching him “for making a clean sweep of what has been done, not knowing the training in France and having been placed by Paul Mitchell”.
In a few months, the Academy will welcome a new member in the presence of Sébastien Muet, director of the FC Metz training center. The opportunity to have at its head a qualified man to supervise such a structure, which is not yet the case for the new Belgian arrival.
Philippe Clément remains confident
In the midst of all this tumult, Philippe Clément remains confident, surprised to read the program of his departure in the newspaper The Team the day before the match against PSG. “I was surprised but I stayed focused,” he assured Friday at a press conference. “I came here in January on a two-and-a-half-year contract in an ambitious project with young players and I’m focused on that. I haven’t received any signs of concern.”
After the match against Paris, Ruben Aguilar abounded in this direction: “It is true that it is not easy to read that. When we woke up, we received a lot of messages. We talked about it between us then we said to ourselves that we shouldn’t watch, that we were going to play a very important match, that it couldn’t affect us, that it was extra-sporting and that it was up to us to answer on the pitch. The rest is not up to us. The coach didn’t show any concern. He was really focused on the game. He gave us the best possible energy.” An energy more and more present for a coach who feels a real improvement on the physical level of the part of his players. The Belgian coach believes that it always takes six months to see progress, the question is whether he has it ahead of him.
He can in any case count on the determination of his men, starting with Benoît Badiashile. “We are pros, it’s not because things are going badly that we have to let go,” he said before the match against Paris. “We must not forget that we are wearing the AS Monaco jersey, we must give everything for this jersey and for this club which has a great history.”