Ahead of tomorrow night’s game at home to Lens on Matchday 17 of Ligue 1 (kick-off at 21:00 CET), Francesco Farioli tackled three topics while speaking to the press today: the importance of the match, the fatigue within the squad and his side’s opponents for the evening.

ON THE LENS GAME

“This game against Lens will be crucial for our campaign. After a defeat as noteworthy as the one away to Le Havre, we need to pick ourselves up again and regain the mindset that we’d had in every game beforehand. We’re a team of fighters, and we need to keep being the team of fighters that we always have been. We’ll play our own way against Lens and give everything – as much energy and desire as possible – to bounce back.”

on the squad’s possible mental and physical fatigue

“In terms of whether there’s any fatigue, yes, maybe. Our playing style, as I often say, requires a lot of bravery and an enormous amount of effort. We always try to take a leading role on the pitch and look to dominate. To do so, to fulfil that role as leading players, there’s never a moment’s rest on the pitch, both with the ball, when we need to make a lot of decisions with passes constantly being played, and without it, when we need to defend with 50 yards of space behind us and when we’re constantly on the edge and anticipating. When we need to drop back a few yards, we defend in a very active way that requires everyone’s participation. All of that takes an enormous amount of energy, and it especially did at the start, when things weren’t automatic and fluid yet. We’ve only been with the team for six months, but we’ve had the full squad for four-and-a-half months. When you go through a little rough patch like this, if you look at things in detail, there’s not a lot in it. Instead of being in the right place, we’re a yard off the pace, and that can change the outcome of a game, especially away to Le Havre, when we were four or yards off the pace rather than just one. We need to be attentive again so that we get back into the right positions on the pitch and avoid making pointless runs.”

on tomorrow’s opponents

“Lens are a top side, an organised side, capable of competing on the European stage, as we’ve seen with their great results. Their manager has written history for them; what he did last season was remarkable and incredible. They’re a team that supports his ideas and plays with bravery and aggression, and every player believes in what they’re doing. They dropped a few points early on in the season, but they’re back on an upward trajectory now. That’s part and parcel of football. It’s like how OM are climbing back up the table. There’s no such thing as an easy game in this league. After the Brest game, people said that it was a missed opportunity, but I said that it was a good point for us, and we’re now seeing Brest continually picking up points. In this league, we’ll need to fight until the end. Wednesday’s game will be a hard-fought one, and both sides will make adjustments in order to get the best result possible.”

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