Reaction: AS Monaco suffer heartbreaking loss to Lille

On a night where AS Monaco succumbed to a crushing stoppage-time winner from Olivier Giroud to lose 1-0 to LOSC Lille, Adi Hütter and Denis Zakaria reflected on this unfortunate defeat.

Second stanza below expectations

Despite producing a solid first-half display, where they were by far the better team, their drop-off in the second stanza left Hütter extremely frustrated. “We’re unsatisfied, that’s for sure. We’re disappointed with the defeat. I saw two different halves. I think we were much more lively in the first half. We had three good chances to score, and we have to succeed in converting them, even more so here in Lille. In the second half, we gradually lost control of the ball, and I wasn’t satisfied with our performance. Conceding that goal in added time was very tough, but in the end, LOSC deserved their victory,” explained the Austrian.

He then elaborated further on his thoughts on his side’s dip in the second period, stating: “We encouraged Bruno Génésio’s team to press. In certain situations, when we had the opportunity to play forward, we decided to play backwards to build our moves. I think Folarin Balogun was very sharp today, but we weren’t able to find him in the right spaces. We then lacked aggression, and we were almost always in our own half, which made it difficult to press in a coordinated manner. We need to improve on these points for the next matches.

“We can’t be satisfied with our game, but this is only the second game of the season. Besides, the last two years we lost here before finally finishing second and third. We will discuss it with the players, and we will continue to fight, that’s for sure. We knew it was going to be tough because we knew the level of the Lille team. They managed the match well until their goal in added time. We now need to correct these mistakes for the upcoming matches in order to win.”

Biereth and Balogun

Next on the agenda was the 55-year-old tactician’s take on his formation decisions and pairing Mika Biereth and Folarin Balogun in attack. “The triple substitution in the 75th minute was intended to win the match. We started the game in a 4-3-3 formation because Lille are very strong in midfield with André, Mukau, Bouaddi and then Bentaleb. The idea was to control them better,” he insisted.

“From my point of view, we managed to do it in the first half. I finally decided to switch to a 4-2-2-2 with Folarin Balogun and Mika Biereth up front. Our goal is always to win every game. I think a draw would have been acceptable, but we will continue to work and bounce back.”

Zakaria’s reflections

Captain Zakaria then offered his insights in his post-match comments, with him breaking down the contest in an honest and analytical fashion. “I think it’s never easy to come and play here. We messed up on the details, and we paid for it today. It’s all about accuracy, concentration and the desire to win for 90 minutes. We came here to take three points and we missed the opportunity to do it tonight,” commented the Swiss midfielder.

All eyes turn to Strasbourg

Even though they had their moments of ascendancy, in the opening 45 especially, the numbers told the story of a match ASM will want to quickly forget, as Lille held the edge in terms of expected goals (3.02 to 1.32), total shots (18 to 6), shots inside the box (10 to 5), touches in the opposition box (33 to 15) and overall duels won (59 to 36).

Determined to come out swinging vs RC Strasbourg and put in a much-improved effort, expect Monaco to give a far more accomplished account of themselves in this huge upcoming encounter at home.