Facing the press after the 4-1 defeat to Rennes, Lyon manager Peter Bosz broke down the reasons for his team’s catastrophic performance.
His words transribed in L’Équipe, the coach insisted that Bruno Génésio’s men deserved credit, but that no tactical reasoning could explain how “badly” his team played.
“It’s a good thing it was only 1-0 at half time because it could have been 4-0. I don’t want to explain it. We were bad on and off the ball, it’s not the Lyon I’ve been seeing these past few months. Rennes deserve it, well done to them. We can talk about the goals, about other things, but the team was very bad. All of the players and myself, we weren’t good. We can talk tactics, about 4-4-2 and 5-3-2, whatever you want – but when you play like we did tonight, it has nothing to do with strategy. We were very bad, that’s it.”
“The opposition made more sprints, played more with the ball, lost the ball less, and was better than us. Rennes are one of those teams that are fighting against us for a place in Europe. We knew it was an important match, the results in the afternoon went in our favour, so I have no explanation. I tried but I couldn’t find one. From the start of the match, I felt that we weren’t doing well. We lost some easy balls. It must be said, Rennes did things very well. And they played on Thursday as well! What is mental fatigue? I rested five or six players, I don’t believe it’s that. It’s not that, it’s on us and nothing else.”