Ligue 1 Talk

Goalkeeper: Jeremie Janot. The Sainte keeper kept a clean sheet against the Marseille attack, which is one of the best in the league. It’s not like he’s got any stellar defenders in front of him either, although I guess Brandao did a pretty good defensive job for ASSE. Anyway, Janot made several excellent saves to earn a point for his side, which happens to be fairly needy in that department.

Right Back: Rod Fanni was able to render Younousse Sankhare almost completely ineffectual AND cause Mamadou Sakho problems, which is no easy task. Fanni is probably the best right back in the league and he had a very good performance on Saturday.

Center Back: Milan Bisevac. Lens have some rather tricky attackers, and Bisevac lead the VAFC defense to prevent them from scoring. The Valenciennes defense had a tough job as the attack did very little, and Bisevac was the star performer.

Center Back: Andre Luiz. Nancy have had defensive problems galore this season, and a clean sheet against a top five team was not something anyone was expecting. Luiz is a long ball playing Gerard Pique type center back, and he contributed to the attack nicely on Saturday as well.

Left Back: Mamadou Sakho was playing in a new position against Rennes, but showed himself to be a very capable left defender, forcing the Rennes attack to move through Gyan, Leroy, and Bangoura rather than using Sylvain Marveaux. Sakho also pulled off a very clever Cruijff turn to relieve pressure along with some nice overlaps which demonstrated a nice technical side to his game.

Defensive Midfielder: Pascal Berenguer aided the ASNL defense in keeping Montpellier at bay and made threatening runs into the attacking third, scoring a beautiful chip on one of them which is up for Goal of the Week.

Deffensive Midfielder: Jean-Jacques Gosso helped Monaco dominate the midfield in the match against Lyon. Yes, that means he was part of a group that had a greater effect than Miralem Pjanic, Jean Makoun, and Maxime Gonalons. Bravo.

Attacking Midfielder Right: Eden Hazard had been preforming below expectations so far this season and he decided to end that against Le Mans. He provided the free kick that assisted the first goal, pulled some lovely dribbling moves to set up Gervinho for the second, and took the ball from the half line, beat several defenders, and slotted it past Didier Ovono for the third.

Attacking Midfielder Center: Yoann Gourcuff. The fact that he was playing against his father’s team didn’t stop him, Gourcuff was all over this match. He set up the first goal with a crazy Marseille roulette acrobatic pass move, was important in creating the second, set up Cavenaghi for a tap in on the third, and scored the fourth from a tricky angle, sending it right between Fabien Audard’s legs. Quite a performance.

Attacking Midfielder Left: Michel Bastos. That free kick alone gets him in this team. It was perfect. Ruffier didn’t even move. He also put it a number of crosses that caused the Monaco back line some problems.

Striker: David Bellion. It wasn’t a great week for strikers in Ligue 1, but Bellion was huge. A surprise starter, he scored twice on two opportunities in the first half, excellent work from a professional poacher.

Janot

Fanni-Bisevac-Luiz-Sakho

Berenguer-Gosso

Hazard-Gourcuff-Bastos

Bellion

Filed under: Ligue 1 Commentary Tagged: | Andre Luiz, David Bellion, Eden Hazard, Jean-Jacques Gosso, Jeremie Janot, Ligue 1 Team of the Week, Mamadou Sakho, Michel Bastos, Milan Bisevac, Pascal Berenguer, Rod Fanni, Yoann Gourcuff