The Champions League knockout round is imminent, Lille shook hands with Metz 0-0 in the last round of Ligue 1, although facing Metz in the relegation zone and full of injuries, Lille did not rotate the starting to stay in the Champions League, this Ligue 1 championship against the Champions League champions should have been quite interesting, but due to Lille's slightly sluggish state, the knockout match seemed to lose suspense before it began.
Lille is not a European black shop in the traditional sense, but in the past few years, under the management of Director Campos, there have been many examples of buying low and selling high, with 10 million euros of Pepe 80 million for sale, 14 million euros for Osmayne for sale, and Leo for 23 million for visa-free introduction. Last season, Lille pushed Paris to win the Ligue 1 title, and many fans believe that they will repeat the mistakes of the former Monaco championship-winning squad, but the meritorious Campos and the manager Galtil have left the team, and Lille has ushered in internal changes while trying to retain the championship team to maintain stability.
So, Lille started the season with basically retaining the team that won last season, from the perspective of selling players, the departure of the main goalkeeper Menion will certainly affect the overall strength, but the replacement of the goalkeeper position will not have a traumatic impact on the team, midfielder Sumare joined Leicester City, but substitute Player Shika helped Lille beat Paris to win the title at the beginning of the season, which made people see the hope that the club will continue last season's glory. The biggest variable lies in the coach, The long-idle Govinez re-emerged, under great pressure to take over Galtier's championship team, fortunately, Govinez has no intention of making much adjustment to Lille's winning lineup and tactics, Andermann, Fonte, Benjamin Andre, Ilmaz, Jonathan David, the 5 central axis players are still the core of Lille in the new season.
However, this set of fully retained championship winning teams did not play out the full strength of last season's Ligue 1 title. The French Super League defeat in Paris, which lacks many South American players due to the Copa America, also lacks gold and persuasiveness. The two cores of The first and the last two core Fonte and Irmaz are both over the age of 35, although they can not maintain the competitiveness of last season after seeing the hope of the title, and Turkey's defeat in the European Championship has also weakened the status of the three Turkish internationals in Lille's squad. Ilmaz's goal efficiency plummeted, the Cherik League, which has a good assist ability, has not yet scored and assisted, and Yazezhe was sold to the Russian Premier League in the winter window.
At the beginning of the league, Lille's sluggish performance once put Govinnage under the pressure of dismissal, but fortunately, Jonathan David's state gradually became popular, and Lille was able to stabilize in the group competing for European competition, and Gavinech had no worries about leaving class. In the case of multi-front combat, Lille also managed to break through the first breakout of the group from Red Bull Salzburg, Sevilla and Wolfsburg, which are not absolutely strong but have an average strength in the Champions League "Death Group". Lille's performance was decent, but the performance was still visibly declining. On the other side, former Galtier led another Ligue 1 team, Nice, in the top three, and if it were not for the deduction of 1 point for the clash with Marseille (the penalty is 2 points deducted, 1 point suspended), Nice is also expected to surpass Marseille in second place.
Because of the successful promotion to the Champions League knockout rounds, even if Newcastle tried to bring in Botman at a sky-high price, Lille still did his best to retain the defensive core. However, Ikoone and Renaldo have been sold to Fiorentina and Atletico, Ikoone has played a state climax after the theft at home this season, and Renaldo is the absolute main force in Lille's left-back position, and the departure of the two further weakens Lille's overall strength. The central axis did not move, but most of Lille's quick offensive and defensive conversion of the wing lineup last season left the team, and substitute players such as Wea Jr. and Goodmondson had to pick up the girder, and Lille's response in the transfer market was to introduce ben Alpha, who was 34 years old and idle at home for more than half a year without a visa.
Lille has played on multiple fronts this season, but the sluggish performance at the beginning of the season and in the recent one-line campaign cannot be entirely blamed on the distraction of the Champions League. Especially after the team was eliminated by Lens on penalties in the French Cup, the last 4 league games are all one week, 1 win, 1 draw and 2 losses, only 2 goals have been scored in 4 games, and the last round was kept a clean sheet by Metz, the third worst in league defense, which fully illustrates the problem of Lille's offensive downturn.
Lille is currently the team with the fewest goals scored in the top 12 teams in Ligue 1, scoring 32 goals in 25 games. As mentioned earlier, the decline in the form of turkey international Irmaz is a major reason for the team's lack of attack, and another reason is that Ilmaz's forward partner Canada's rising star Jonathan David is also in a slump. After 18 rounds of league battles in Ligue 1, Jonathan David also led the Ligue 1 top scorer list with 11 goals, and in the past 7 league games, Jonathan David only scored 1 goal against the relegated team Bordeaux, and in 2022, Jonathan David did not score in Lille, and the top scorer first place has long been stolen by Monaco striker Ben Yeddell.
The combination of Jonathan Davy and Ilmaz has experienced a total of more than 540 minutes in 6 games, and it is precisely because of this that the veteran Ilmaz has gradually lost the main position, both players are the main players of their respective national teams, Ilmaz is 36 years old, Jonathan David is a player who spares no effort to run an average of 12 kilometers per game, and the two have entered the bottleneck period under the boat.
In addition to the lack of attack, Lille also has the problem of goalkeeper position, facing Paris Saint-Germain, this season replaced the departing Menion as the main force of Gelbić made a series of low-level mistakes, since then he has been reduced to a substitute, Jardine has become The starting goalkeeper of Lille's last two games, although lille has achieved clean sheets in the past two games, but according to statistics, Gelbich's save success rate this season is as high as 72%, ranking sixth in Ligue 1, far higher than Jardin's 41.67% save success rate. Before the match with Chelsea, who will be Lille's starting goalkeeper will be the French media attention of the competition, to which Lille manager Govinnic said: "Gelbic's mentality is very good, he seems very calm, facing Chelsea No matter who comes as the starting goalkeeper, they can have a good mentality. ”
As the first in the Champions League group, the two draws were allocated to the defending champions, Lille's luck is really too bad, in the history of the Champions League, Lille has only won 1 game against teams from the Premier League 8 times before, but the reference value of these data is not high, Lille's last time in the Champions League against the Premier League teams has to go back to the distant 2007, 15 years later again in the Champions League to meet the Premier League giants, Lille captain Fonte is quite confident: "I hope that tomorrow we can show the true face of Lille, everything has changed in the past two years." We are now a more efficient team in the Champions League. ”
Chelsea's form is also unspeakably ideal, with the big names in the front line also in a slump, but the Blues can still win five consecutive games in all competitions. Can the unpromissed "dog team" Lear show his teeth at a critical moment? Let's wait and see! (Back-ups/MIKU)