Lille slip into danger zone CLAMOUR TO FREEZE GAME FOR PLAYERS
Paris, Nov. 21: Marcelo Bielsa’s Lille slipped back into the automatic relegation places in the French league on Monday after crashing to a 3- 0 defeat away at Amiens in a rearranged game.
The match had initially been abandoned in late September after a pitchside barrier collapsed under the weight of Lille fans celebrating their team taking an early lead, leaving 29 supporters injured.
The travelling supporters who filled the same section of Amiens’ Stade de la Licorne on Monday saw their side slump to a heavy loss with Harrison Manzala starting the rout by scoring either side of half- time for the hosts.
Senegalese forward Moussa Konate then made it 3- 0 five minutes from the end, and it would have been worse for Lille had Emmanuel Bourgaud’s late free- kick not thumped the post.
“I don’t want to divert attention because the less good team beat the better side 3- 0 and it was a deserved result,” Bielsa said.
“As for my job, this result increases my share
of the responsibility because the difference in quality between the two sides was clearly in our favour.
“If the team with less talented players wins 3- 0 against us, it is my responsibility.”
Lille, who hired enigmatic Argentine coach Bielsa in the close season to front an ambitious project under new owner Gerard Lopez, had won Moscow, Nov. 21: Loud calls grew in Russia on Tuesday to cancel tabletopping Lokomotiv Moscow’s upcoming away match in the country’s freezing Far East to protect the health of national squad players.
Lokomotiv are due to cross eight timezones to play last- place SKA Khabarovsk in their 15,200- seat Lenin Stadium on Monday.
Khabarovsk’s first promotion to top flight Russian football has given an unexpected headache to the bigger clubs just as the nation prepares to host the World Cup on June 14- July 15.
The Russian squad is made up almost entirely of domestic players and at least four are expected to come from Lokomotiv.
Parliament’s deputy speaker Igor Lebedev said forcing teams to travel to the other side of the world’s largest country and play in Artic weather was “a travesty”.