Adrien Ursea spoke to the media in the post-match press conference after the Aiglons’ defeat against Saint-Etienne.

Adrian how would you explain your team’s second half performance?

In the first half we were set up to create chances. In the second half we tried to stop them going down the wings because they caused us some problems that way in the first half. Especially down the right with Debuchy putting in a lot of crosses into the box. Unfortunately that change penalised us going forward because we got deeper and deeper and couldn’t find the solutions to push them back in their own half. 

Is this a setback for you?

Yes. Especially because we were off the back of a good performance against Lens. We’d rediscovered some form and togetherness. Today it was a different issue and we tried to adapt without changing system. Unfortunately it made us drop too deep and we suffered too much. That’s what penalised us.

Do you regret not bringing in Ndoye earlier? 

We were always speaking to Kasper. It all depended on his fitness. Up until now we were in good contact with him and he would tell us how many minutes he could play. We can’t forget that he’s coming back from injury. Tonight I felt like he did his job, he ran a lot and worked hard. It was really tough and he was out under pressure by the Saint-Etienne defenders.
A lot of changer could have brought something different but I thought we were solid defensively and I didn’t want to change too much. 

No defensive issues, but some creating chances...

We’re not really a side that’s used to being dominated. We did that at Lens in the same formation. We tried to set up in the same way but it was too hard. As for creating chances, it was really tough. We need to accept that Saint-Etienne are a very tough team to break down. They’re really well organized and press very well. Building up play is really hard especially when we’re struggling. It needs a lot of confidence and we don’t really have that at the moment 

Do you think Amine Gouiri is suffering a little bit physically? 

No. Amine did his job. If he was a little bit worse than usual it’s due to the opposition. By taking him off on the hour mark I just thought I wanted a different striker. Myziane has been great in training these past few weeks since his return from injury. I thought he would bring a little more freshness than Amine. 

How would you say the midfield played?

I feel like we couldn’t find anything in behind. They were very well organised. When that’s the case you need to try and find space in behind. We didn’t do that enough. We needed to make them drop deeper and make them change. It’s also because we tried to stop them creating down the wings. We didn’t do what we needed to.

Today you missed an opportunity to get closer to the top of the table...

I’ll look at that at the end of the league. Like I said what I’m interested in is the next game and those three points. Taking about the top end of the table is premature judging by our situation. What we want to do is find something stable to produce two or three consecutive performances in a row. We take one step forward and then two backwards. That’s the issue with teams with low confidence.

What’s your state of mind before the intense schedule coming up in February starting by Monaco? 

The same as we showed against Lens and in every game. We’re in a tough period where we need to take it step by step. My only focus now is the game against Monaco.

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