Having gone into the international break in second place in Ligue 1, Lens have clearly had an excellent season so far, whereas Brest failed to win any of their opening eleven matches but came into this game on the back of two wins.
With Florian Sotoca suspended, Wesley Saïd injured and Arnaud Kalimuendo in need of a rest, Franck Haise took the opportunity to change Lens’ frontline, bringing in Corentin Jean and Ignatius Ganago in attack. The return of Jean Louis Leca in goal was the only other change from the team that thrashed Troyes two weeks ago as Lens continued with their usual 3-4-1-2 formation.
Michel Der Zakarian made three changes to the side that beat Lorient, with Lucien Agoumé, Brendan Chardonnet and Christophe Hérelle replacing Hugo Magnetti, Lilian Brassier and Jere Uronen. Brest set up in a 4-4-2 formation.
Brest took a very early lead. They hit a long ball forward that was headed away by Facundo Medina only for Romain Faivre to pick up the second ball as he burst forward from midfield. A poor touch allowed Medina to claim the ball but Faivre stuck at it, ensuring Medina was unable to clear the ball away then robbing Przemyslaw Frankowski of it. Jérémy Le Douaron came across to help out, knocking the ball past Frankowski as he scrambled to his feet then hitting a cross that deflected off of Medina from the byline. Jonathan Gradit had pushed up towards Franck Honorat on the edge of the area and Kevin Danso appeared to interpret this as a need for the defensive line to step up despite Le Douaron heading towards the touchline, meaning he needed to sprint back to pick up Steve Mounié. Danso got back into position but, having had to scramble back to make up for his misinterpretation, was in no position to challenge for the cross as Mounié stooped to head it home. It was a scrappy goal but one that handed Brest the advantage straight away.
They soon doubled their lead from a corner.
Already ahead, Brest sat back in their shape, with the two strikers blocking the passes into Lens’ midfielders. Lens worked around this by using the width of their back three, pulling Brest’s strikers over to one side then passing it out to the other for Jonathan Gradit to push forward on the ball in space or pick out a pass into a now open midfielder.
Brest were able to keep two solid banks of four though, ensuring there was little space for Lens to play through, and, probably rattled by how badly the match had started, Lens were giving the ball away sloppily with uncharacteristically poor touches.
The home side were also able to combat the width Lens’ wing-backs give them by having their wingers drop back into the defensive line, allowing their full-backs to tuck inside and solidify the centre, although their wingers would often make this move quite late so that they didn’t leave too much space in midfield.
Brest were continuing to threaten on the counter-attack, where they were pushing forward their wingers to join the attackers in an attempt to overload Lens’ back three before they could get men back. This is how they scored their third, as Honorat broke forward down the left before switching play out to Faivre, who was given the time and space by Medina to place a shot into the bottom corner from the edge of the area.
Lens continued to push forward in search of a goal in the second half, bringing on David Costa and Kalimuendo for Medina and Ganago as they changed to a 4-3-3 shape.
It was Brest that would add to the score though, adding a fourth with a long ball forward that Le Douaron ran onto, outmuscling Danso before finishing over Leca.
To their credit, Lens had continued to fight rather than simply accepting their loss, but they never once got a grip on the game and it was long over as a contest by this point. Substitute Kalimuendo receiving a red card for a poor challenge was the signal that the referee might as well have blown up for full time despite there still being sixteen minutes left to play.
It was simply a disastrous performance by Lens, while Brest were able to play simply, keeping it tight in defence and taking the opportunities given to them.
If you enjoy these posts, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a one-off donation. For just €2.99, you can get access to premium videos and training sessions.
No responses yet