A sense of déjà vu. A win at home, a loss away. Such is the trial faced by Claude Puel’s players this season. Today at 2 PM, the eaglets host Bordeaux to confirm this trend. Objective: Recover the points lost away from home.
Shaken and destabilized by a valiant Bastia team, the Nice players surprised with their lack of aggressiveness. Paradoxical and surreal, compared to their energized and tactically disciplined performances at home.
Against Bordeaux, victory is imperative to compensate for this deficit of points on the road. A delicate situation, which every week, puts Claude Puel’s men against the wall. In this match where Gym is the favorite, the eaglets will face a recovering team, with a stereotypical but terribly effective playstyle. Struggling at the start of the season, fighting for survival for a few matches, Bordeaux has finally returned to a more acceptable level in recent weeks. Constantly competing for European spots every season, the team from the Southwest nevertheless has one of the most boring games in Ligue 1. This is due to a dubious sporting and financial policy. Since winning the French championship in 2009, everything has derailed. Several players saw their salaries increase but results didn’t follow. Very quickly, the club was forced to sell due to an oversized payroll. Trémoulinas, Gouffran, Gourcuff, Chamakh, Diarra, Diawara… so many players sold to fill the coffers.
In return, the club bets on youth, but the next generation is slow to emerge. Nonetheless, the coach, Francis Gillot, with his unique style manages to achieve decent seasons with these new Girondins. Not with flair, but with sufficient realism. Caution and patience will therefore be the watchwords for Nice in this match. The Bordeaux block will be difficult to move and chances will be rare.
An ideal match for Dario Cvitanich in the position of a fox in the box. On the bright side, Bautheac returns to the squad but may be slightly short to start the match. The Bordeaux control tower, Cheik Diabaté, is absent for this match. Last season, the Malian striker also had to miss this encounter at Stade du Ray. His teammates won 1-0 on the field of an OGC Nice that had a streak of 6 consecutive victories in the league. A nearly similar scenario this year for the Azurian club, unbeaten at “its” Allianz Riviera…
