The new-manager bounce is alive and well in Ligue 1
Ligue 1 has been no stranger to managerial changes this season. Marseille and Lyon alone have churned through six permanent appointments between them. Sacking and replacing managers is often the work of rash or poorly organised clubs, but could this be a campaign in which those changes bear fruit?
This weekend saw positive results for all four of the sides who have changed managers this season: Lyon, Marseille and Nantes all won, and Rennes achieved an impressive 1-1 draw at the Parc des Princes – and that came a few days after they had beaten Milan 3-2 in the Europa League. Julien Stéphan’s side did not hold on for the win against PSG on Sunday night – Gonçalo Ramos equalised from the penalty spot in stoppage time – but they had won their previous six league matches, surging from lower mid-table to within a few points of the European places.
Stéphan’s previous tenure at the club and his time at Strasbourg in between were topsy-turvy. He led Rennes into the Champions League and won the Coupe de France in 2019, but then resigned in March 2021 having lost four matches in a row. His time at Strasbourg was similar; he guided them to sixth place in 2022 only to be let go last season after a run of just one win in 17 matches.
What has been consistent, though, is his ability to give players freedom and make the most of them tactically, something that his predecessor, Bruno Génésio, often overcomplicated. Playing a simpler and more forward-thinking system – a 4-4-2 with Martin Terrier and Arnaud Kalimuendo the key points of attack – has helped sharpen the team going forward.
He also has the backing of the club’s hierarchy, as was shown when he replaced Nemanja Matic with the promising and more mobile Azor Matusiwa. Rennes still face an uphill battle to finish in the European places but the Coupe de France is still very much on offer, giving Stéphan the chance to make his return a doubly redemptive one.
Matic was snapped up by new Lyon manager Pierre Sage in January, a busy month for the club in the transfer window. Sage, who replaced the embattled Fabio Grosso in late November, enjoyed another good result this weekend – a slightly nervy win away to Metz. When he was appointed, avoiding relegation was the objective. Now a deep run in the Coupe de France looks possible, giving the team a backdoor route into Europe. They have won their last five league matches but a top-six finish still feels very distant given their poor start to the season.
Sage has also simplified his team’s tactics, with Matic a steadying influence, and he has fostered improved relationships with players young and old alike. Maxence Caqueret looks a player reborn and Sage has also gotten a tune out of Ernest Nuamah. Alexandre Lacazette has scored nine league goals since the manager arrived in late November, soundly bouncing back from the ignominy of being taken off at half-time against Lille. It’s been 12 years since Lyon’s last major trophy – when they won the Coupe de France with Lacazette a bit-part player in the squad – but now, under the guidance of Sage, a second triumph for the veteran looks possible.
Stéphan and Sage have definitely improved their teams but the jury remains out on the other two managers. Marseille have impressed in successive victories under Jean-Louis Gasset, including Sunday’s demolition of Montpellier, but one wonders if the players are simply reacting to the departure of the sometimes-caustic Gennaro Gattuso. Still, Gasset has shown himself to be a steady hand who understands the pressures of life at the Vélodrome, having been a manager in Ligue 1 for more than 20 years.
His disastrous time as Ivory Coast manager may worry some fans, but he has proven in previous spells at Bordeaux and Saint-Étienne that he can form a cohesive team by allowing his veteran players a certain amount of freedom. With experienced hands such as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Jordan Veretout central to his team’s hopes of both moving up the table and progressing in Europe, his calming influence may not catch the headlines but it may be what France’s most-supported club needs.
Lastly, Jocelyn Gourvennec has also overseen modest gains at Nantes. They have struggled with injuries, and the absences of key attackers Moses Simon and Mostafa Mohamed have not helped, but they have shown steady signs of revival in their last six matches. Gourvennec’s team battled gamely in defeats to in-form Lens and PSG, and recorded vital wins over Lorient and Toulouse – direct rivals in the fight for survival. With Metz and Strasbourg both to come before the next international break, this sort of cogency and hammer-and-tongs approach has been sorely needed. The sample size is small, but a change on the bench has the club moving in the right direction.
The in-season managerial change is risky but this season fortune is favouring the clubs who make a change.
Talking points
• Monaco benefitted from stumbles by their fellow Champions League contenders Lille and Nice over the weekend, but their 3-2 win away to Lens was not enough to take them above second-placed Brest, who beat Strasbourg 3-0 on Saturday. Brest’s continued strong form and consistency is edging them ever closer a top-four finish. Monaco have been anything but consistent this season: after a gritty derby win over Nice a fortnight ago they fell to a stuttering loss against Toulouse last weekend. That said, they
responded well against Lens, winning the game 3-2 in the 92nd minute. As is often the case, their attacking flair made the difference.
• Reims’ hopes of playing in Europe also received a boost this weekend. After losing successive matches against relegation-threatened Toulouse and Lorient earlier this month, their chances of finishing in the top six seemed to be drifting away. Will Still’s side did well to reverse this trend on Sunday. Despite going down to 10 men when Thomas Foket was sent off, they won 2-1 against Le Havre thanks to two goals from Mohamed Daramy.
• Toulouse are hardly out of the woods yet given that they are just four points above the relegation playoff spot, but they earned an impressive win against Lille on Sunday, coming back from a goal down to win 3-1 – no mean feat against what was the second-best defence in the division going into the weekend’s games. The win was particularly impressive given that it came on the back of a gruelling second leg against Benfica in Europe. It may even be their best domestic result this season. With Thijs Dallinga (eight goals in the league to date) finding form, and a comfortable set of fixtures coming up before the international break, a further season in the top flight is looking more possible by the day.
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chest then swivelled to fire into the corner.
The Unipol Domus stadium erupted as Luvumbo, clutching a hamstring, was smothered by teammates. Every point matters when you’re fighting relegation and Cagliari have now earned seven from goals in second-half injury time. Can we call it the zona Ranieri? Back in October the manager predicted: “I’m sure we’ll keep ourselves in Serie A the same way we got here: in the last second of the last game.”
If that is Cagliari’s narrative, this result fit equally well with the story of Napoli’s catastrophic campaign. After winning Serie A for the first time in 33 years, they have followed up with one of the worst title defences of all time. Ninth in the table, they trail the league leaders, Internazionale, by 29 points.
They are on to their third manager of the season. Francesco Calzona officially took the reins last Monday, though his first training session was another day later – less than 36 hours before Napoli hosted Barcelona in the last-16 of the Champions League. In the circumstances, their 1-1 draw in that fixture could be framed as a good result. It was harder to find positives in these dropped points against Cagliari. “The problem is purely a mental one,” said Calzona. “We need to stay in the game, move for each other more. We’ve started to look more like a team, but we only do it in phases.”
How did we get here? Napoli did not just win Serie A last season but dominated it completely, finishing 16 points clear in first place with more goals scored and fewer conceded than anyone else in the division. There were small clues late in the season that some part of the magic was fading. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the eventual winner of Serie A’s MVP award, did not score from March onwards. Napoli only dropped seven points from their first 24 league games but lost or drew half of the remaining 14.
We know now that the relationship between Napoli’s manager and owner was deteriorating. Luciano Spalletti learned via email that Aurelio De Laurentiis had chosen to trigger a oneyear extension to his contract. Was this the cause of a breakdown, or a symptom? Depending on whose story you believe, Spalletti was either insulted or simply looking for an excuse to justify a decision he had already made to leave at the end of the campaign.
De Laurentiis has since insisted that triggering the option was a formality, intended as a first step before renegotiating to reward the manager with better terms. Spalletti paints a more complicated picture of his former employer, telling La Gazzetta dello Sport: “There are four or five [versions of De Laurentiis] and I’m not referring to his sons … There’s the grateful one, the melancholy one, the rancorous one, the one who acts behind the scenes.”
The owner has acknowledged mistakes in what came next. Rudi Garcia was appointed as manager but fired in November with Napoli fourth in the table. De Laurentiis later said that he regretted not having taken this decision immediately after hearing the Frenchman confess in his introductory press conference to not watching any of the title-winning run. Yet that statement begged the question: what had they spoken about at the interview?
Walter Mazzarri was next. De Laurentiis hoped his familiarity with the club, which he twice steered to Champions League qualification in four seasons at the start of the 2010s, would make him the perfect ferryman to find calmer waters and navigate through the rest of this season. Instead Mazzarri’s Napoli scored nine Serie A goals in 12 games – the fewest of any team in the league during his tenure.
Circumstances hurt him. Osimhen, the division’s Capocannonierelast season, was barely available during Mazzarri’s tenure – recovering from a hamstring injury in time for a small handful of appearances before departing for the Africa Cup of Nations. Despite returning exhausted, he has scored in both matches under Calzona so far.
Yet this same squad coped with absences for Osimhen early last season, when Simeone and Giacomo Raspadori stepped up to fill the void. Neither the attack nor the midfield supporting it lost any key pieces over the summer, centre-back Kim Min-jae becoming the only starter to depart when Bayern Munich triggered his €58m release clause. And if this group did need better cover, would that not also be the responsibility of De Laurentiis? He described the sporting director role as “not central” after Cristiano Giuntoli, a man widely credited for Kvaratskhelia’s bargain signing, left to join Juventus in the summer.
The squad planning since has felt chaotic, with no adequate replacement found for Kim and Napoli scrambling this January to find cover for Osimhen and Piotr Zielinski, who was omitted from Napoli’s squad Champions League knockouts squad – despite starting regularly in Serie A – because he is expected to join Inter when his contract expires in the summer.
At a press conference earlier this month, De Laurentiis offered a frontfooted defence of his record as club president, noting that Napoli had closed 2023 with an almost €80m profit. He pointed to his family’s ownership of Bari, who finished third in Serie B last season, as another net benefit to Napoli, allowing for development of a greater pool of players, and spoke about the soon-to-be-released film that his media company, Filmauro, has produced on last year’s Scudetto win.
None of which will help supporters feel better about seeing their team midtable. “In the situation we find ourselves in, we just have to think one match at a time,” said Calzona when asked what his team can still aim for this season. “It’s pointless talking about projects right now … but until the maths condemns us we have to aspire to the highest objectives.”
The gap to fifth place – which could hold a Champions League spot – stands at nine points, and Napoli still have 13 games left to play. A lot can happen in the as this weekend’s opponents can attest.