Is There Any Way Back For Gignac?‏

The Football Front’s Andrew Swan evaluates the recent few years of struggle and glory for Andre –Pierre Gignac.

Andre-Pierre Gignac ended May 2009 as Ligue 1’s top scorer. Fast forward two and a half years and in November 2011 he has been banished to the reserves having scored only one goal in six months. It has been a challenging 30 months for Marseille’s Gignac, known by teammates and friends as Dédé. The 26 year old has endured a rocky career so far with huge peaks and troughs thanks to injuries, international appearances, prolific patches of form and goal scoring, increases in weight and dips in form.

Gignac’s career has seen him travel a great deal around France playing early on for ES Fos-sur-Mer and FC Martigues on the Cote d’Azur where he grew up before moving north to Brittany to join the youth academy of professional club Lorient, a Ligue 2 club at the time. Such a big move for 17 year old Gignac was necessary having been released by FC Martigues. Such a knock to his confidence early on in his career wasn’t noticed as he developed well and found himself promoted to the Lorient senior team in 2004 by then manager Christian Gourcuff. Such faith shown in Gignac by the club and manager was quickly repaid as Gignac scored what proved to be the winning goal on his debut, against Chateauroux. Unfortunately Gignac struggled to settle and fully secure a place in the Lorient first 11 that season and the next season saw him loaned out to Championnat National club Pau. Having dropped to one of the lower tiers of French football, Gignac began to find his feet and his shooting boots and managed 8 goals and 4 assists in his 18 appearances for the Pyrénées-Atlantiques club.

This new found confidence ensured that by the start of the 2006-07 season, Gignac was a mainstay in the Lorient starting 11. The trust in Gignac saw him net a club best 9 goals and provide 5 assists in 37 appearances. Such form had resulted in a number of more prestigious clubs take an interest in the 20 year-old with Lille and Toulouse coming head-to-head over his signature. It was widely reported that Lille had already entered a pre-contract agreement with Lorient. However with the lure of potential Champions League football and an offer of more than double the salary that Lille were prepared to offer, Gignac opted for a return to the south of France with Toulouse.

Unfortunately, as it had with Lorient, Gignac’s form with Toulouse took some time to get going. In his first season Gignac only managed 2 goals, he struggled with weight and confidence issues and sat behind Johan Elmander in the pecking order. Having come to the club in search of first team football and Champions League football, Gignac was undoubtedly disappointed with his first season at Toulouse, as they crashed out of the Champions League 3^rd qualifying round 0-5 to Liverpool, and finished the season just one place above the relegation zone. With the departure of Elmander to Bolton over the summer period, Gignac again found himself to be the number one choice and after a solid pre-season found his goal scoring form again. Such form and a continued run in the first team ensured that Gignac finished this season as the Ligue 1 top scorer, and was playing in the French national team after what most would consider his most successful season to date.

After such a successful season it was inevitable that there would be interest from other clubs. Some of Europe’s top clubs were reportedly interested at the time with Arsenal, Manchester United, AC Milan and Olympique Lyonnais all enquiring about Gignac’s services. However, Gignac demonstrated his commitment to Toulouse by signing a contract extension with the club. Next season Gignac picked up where he had left off previously, netting 12 times before Christmas. Unfortunately due to injury, the second half of Gignac’s season was poor in comparison, and he only managed another 4 goals.

Teams were still aware of Gignac’s skill and potential and when Marseille tabled a bid of around €18 million ahead of the 2010-2011 season, neither Toulouse nor Gignac could turn this down. This was going to be the real big chance for Dédé, joining a team who had just won the league and cup double and who were guaranteed Champions League football. The signing was well timed, as shortly after Marseille revealed that they had signed another promising young French player, Loic Remy. It was during the opening months of this season that Gignac’s confidence took another blow. He was struggling for form and goals, criticism from fans and ex-professionals was aimed in his direction. With the support of confident manager Didier Deschamps, Gignac managed to turn his form around after the winter break and scored 8 times. Unfortunately Marseille missed out on the title to Lille during this season, and Gignac’s poor early season form was highlighted from some quarters as being one of the contributing factors for this.

Injury curtailed Gignac’s pre-season training again ahead of the 2011-2012 season and Deschamps sent him away to Italy to a fitness camp (although some dubbed it a ‘fat camp’). After a great deal of hard work Gignac returned to Marseille looking in much better physical shape. In an attempt to regain the Ligue 1 title, Deschamps had begun to employ a new tactical strategy, looking to 4-3-3, and because of the pre-season Remy was the preferred starting striker with Andre Ayew and Lucho Gonzalez making up the remainder of the strike force. This push on Gignac’s confidence came at a time when the whole team was on a poor run of form, with Deschamps’ new tactics failing to bring in the results he hoped. Marseille slumped to one of their worse starts in years and criticism of this was aimed at players, coaches and club officials. It seemed that Deschamp’s faith in Gignac was wearing thin, with his place in the squad seemingly to make up numbers and was given minor bit-parts in games. The pressure of this situation came to a head when, having started the game, Gignac reacted angrily when he was substituted against Olympiakos in the Champions League. He reportedly threw a water bottle, walked immediately to the changing rooms had an argument with Deschamps after Marseille were defeated. This saw Gignac cast out of the Marseille squad to the reserves.

As I mentioned earlier, it has been a long 2 ½ year s for Andre-Pierre Gignac, which has taken its toll emotionally on the player. Gignac has continually proved his doubters wrong on a number of previous occasions, through regaining fitness and form to ensure he can contribute to any team he is a part of. Given the right training regime to help keep fitness levels at their peak and reduce the likelihood of repeat injuries, and given the right mentoring from a suitable coach or management team, Gignac should be able to push for his place in the French international team again. However, with a mixture of exciting prospects and experienced internationals like Kevin Gameiro, Dimitri Payet, Karim Benzema, and Loic Remy currently in his way, he will have to motivate himself, he needs to regain his form and confidence in order to be one of France’s best players again.

This article was written by Andrew Swan. You can find more of Andrew’s work on his blog: omarseilleuk.wordpress.com .Andrew can also be followed on Twitter: @OMarseilleUK.

A Dreadful Start To Olympique Marseilles’ Season – Who Could Have Phocéen This Coming?

In his debut article for The Football Front, Andrew Swan discusses Marseilles struggles this season.

The start of the 2011-2012 season has seen Olympique Marseille make a meagre start to Ligue 1, registering a mere 3 victories after 12 games. All of which have come against newly promoted opposition.

The lack of wins, coupled with an inability to hold onto a lead means that Marseille, Les Phocéens, currently sit 9th in the league standings, already 14 points behind high-flying, high-spending Paris Saint Germain.

OM’s start to the season has severely dented their hopes of reclaiming their Ligue 1 crown from Lille. Strangely, however in the Champions League, Marseille have managed to fair a little better picking up impressive wins away to Olympiakos and an emphatic 3-0 defeat of current German champions Borussia Dortmund at home. Meaning that after 2 match days OM had been the only team in the Champions league to have picked up more points in the competition than in their domestic campaign.

Unfortunately, Aaron Ramsey’s last minute winner against Marseille for Arsenal seemed to be the tipping point for a number of the Marseille fans, with fighting breaking out between fans and stewards as banners calling for manager Didier Deschamps to be sacked were attempted to be unveiled.

Things haven’t always been this bad for l’OM, having undertaken something of a recent resurgence under manger and former player Didier Deschamps. After taking on the managers role at the beginning of the 2009/10 season, Deschamps led Marseille to their first league title in 18 years, as well as the Coupe de la Ligue (League Cup) and Trophee des Champions (akin to Charity Shield). Add in the fact that Deschamps is an ex-Marseille player and French World Cup winner. It would be hard to imagine Déde not being well liked as a manger.

Deschamps ensured Marseille splashed the cash and brought in some excellent players during his time at the club. He signed the likes of Lucho Gonzalez, Fernando Morientes and Gabriel Heinze. But Deschamps also had to work under stricter and more realistic financial constraints in recent times in which players had to be moved on before replacements could be purchased. Even with these constraints Déde had managed to put together a rather solid looking squad ahead of the 2011/12 season. The team had a number of internationals and Ligue 1 proven players ensuring that OM were many people’s favourites to win Le Championat for the second time in three seasons.

In July 2009 just as Deschamps was beginning his managerial time with OM, their owner, Robert Louis-Dreyfus died after a long battle with leukaemia. The death was hard to take for many involved with Marseille and the fans alike, with Louis-Dreyfus being viewed by many as the man who helped bring Marseille back to the top, after taking control in 1998. Louis-Dreyfus helped support the club financially, ensuring backing was available for his managers and when his widowed wife, Margarita Louis-Dreyfus took over responsibilities she supported the club in much the same manner. After her first season overseeing Marseille, OM had won the league and cup, and looked set to be in a good position to repeat the feat again the following season.

Unfortunately, due to financial constraints, Deschamps wasn’t able to continue to strengthen his team as much as he would have hoped, and other teams closed the gap, namely, Lille, whose mix of young stars and shrewd signings lead them to their first Ligue 1 title in almost 60 years.

The poor start to this campaign has seen Margarita hit the headlines with her criticism of Marseille, stating publicly ‘I’ve given him (Deschamps) all the money he needs to succeed’ and ominously ‘If I was a true businesswoman, I would have sold the club’. Margarita and Didier have since met and held ‘clear the air’ talks, which should hopefully mean that any comments in the future are kept behind closed doors.

In addition to this misfortune, throughout the disappointing 2010/11 season a number of OM players were subject to home-jacking incidents, with 10 attacks over an 18 month period; this has also meant that Marseille have not only struggled to attract players to the south of France over fears of their own safety, they are also at risk of losing some of their best players who had been victims of the crimes. Players such as Vitorino Hilton, Lucho Gonzalez, Stephane M’Bia, Andre-Pierre Gignac and brothers Andre and Jordan Ayew as well as former club president Jean-Claude Dassier have all been subject to these traumatic and sometimes violent attacks, which has then unsurprisingly led to a drop in form, or in some cases, players having to miss a number of games after the events to overcome the trauma.

Understandably a number of players involved in the home-jacking incidents have sought an exit from the club. Lucho and the Ayew brothers, were the highest profile players, who remained at the club despite interest from other clubs over the summer transfer window. Perhaps due to offers falling short of OM’s valuations it has meant that these players have been left in a state of limbo which in truth benefits neither player nor the club.

Such off-field incidents have clearly left their mark on Lucho, who has failed to produce the kind of performances his €20million price tag would suggest this season. Lucho’s lack of attacking support this season has left the formidable attacking line-up of Mathieu Valbuena, Benoit Cheyrou, Andre Ayew and Loic Remy looking stagnant and void of ideas. OM currently have no one effectively linking up play between defence, midfield and attack.

Something Lucho had been key in orchestrating last season.

The discontent among Marseille players has been evident in performances this season. The team’s lapses in concentration has resulted in Marseille throwing away games from winning positions and gifting the opposition silly goals (Week 2: Auxerre, Week 4: Lille, Week 8: Valenciennes and Week 9: Stade Brest). The culminating effect of these situations has reached the tipping point for some groups of Marseille fans who have chosen to voice their dissatisfaction through banners, for example reading ‘millionaires off the pitch, tramps (down and outs) on the pitch’ and also through a pre-arranged silent protest during the match against AC Ajaccio.

The silence has only added to the rather subdued atmosphere at the Stade Velodrome this season as a result of the renovation work that will see the capacity increased to 67,000 and roofing added to all areas of the ground ahead of the Euro 2016 championships.

Tactically, a recent change in formation from a 4-3-3/4-5-1 to an attack minded 4-4-2, gives the fans some hope that their message is getting across to the manager and players, who surely shouldn’t have needed to be reminded that their performances and results were simply not good enough this season.

Since the last minute defeat to Arsenal in the Champions League, Marseille have gone on to register a 2-0 win against AC Ajaccio in Ligue 1 and a comfortable 4-0 win over Ligue 2 side Racing Club Lens in the Coupe de la Ligue, which possibly represents OM’s best chance of silverware this season and a hard fought 3-2 win away to Dijon FCO. The only sour note to these victories was the very public dispute between Deschamps and OM’s sporting director, Jose Anigo, taking place after the Ajaccio win. The pair have had quite a volatile relationship, often clashing on their opinions on the clubs recruitment policy. However, the club’s hierarchy have urged the pair to focus on the clubs problems rather than their own, and fined Anigo for his comments.

With a 14 point gap between Marseille and league leaders PSG, it already looks like an impossible gap to bridge with the realistic aim of a cup win and solid Champions League run now something to perhaps appease the disgruntled Marseille fans. PSG have invested heavily and attracted some excellent players to Ligue 1 and to Paris, as a result of a huge takeover by the Qatar Sports Investment group. In terms of French football, not well known for its multi-million euro marquee signings, the situation at ‘QSG’ has been likened to that of Manchester City in the Premier League, whereby money is no object. This has seen PSG sign the likes of Kevin Gameiro ahead of Valencia, Javier Pastore from Palermo ahead of a number of top European clubs including Chelsea, and have even been heavily linked with signing David Beckham in the January transfer window.

The surprise success of PSG has shown just how quickly a number of new players can gel together and play excellent football, even against teams who have regularly been at the top of French football in recent years, for example Lyon, whom PSG beat 2-0. The rise of PSG, along with the continued improvement of Lille and return to form of Lyon, would suggest that winning Ligue 1 is now out of Marseille’s own hands. They will need to continue improving performances and crucially eradicating a lack of discipline on the pitch which has left Deschamps with a severely depleted squad through suspensions. The side will also need to continue to grind out results in the hope that the many teams above them slip up and have a substantial drop in form.

In the immediate future, Marseille have a mix of fixtures to concentrate on. Newly promoted Dijon allowed OM to continue to build up confidence and make it 3 wins from 3, ahead of their difficult trip to Arsenal in the Champions League, before struggling Nice visit the Velodrome.

Marseille will then face the difficult double fixtures of visiting Montpellier who currently sit 2nd in Ligue 1 after their tremendous start this season. They then host PSG at the end of November. Indeed, a lot can happen between November and the end of a season.

Meanwhile, Marseille have been drawn away to Caen in the quarter finals of the Coupe de la Ligue, and will hope that they can regain their Champions League form for the last 3 remaining Group F fixtures to progress to the next round.

Let’s hope this bad luck ceases to continue.

Allez l’OM

This article was written by Andrew Swan. You can find more of Andrew’s work on his blog: omarseilleuk.wordpress.com .Andrew can also be followed on Twitter: @OMarseilleUK.