17th round prospects performances… Top 3/ Flop 3… highlights

By: Evilo | December 8th, 2008

Here’s a round up of the U22 performances in this weekend of Ligue 1 action.

L’Equipe mark will be given after the player’s name.
OM 2-1 Nice
Ben Arfa had a couple of nice but useless runs when he came on late in the game.
For Nice, Ospina (6) made some real nice saves, but also a couple of shaky aerial outings. We’ll have to see how much of a weakness it is in the next games. Rémy (5) was coming back from injury and it showed.

Caen 1-1 Rennes
Toudic (6) had a good game I thought, while Lemoine (5) made a costly mistake that turned into a goal. Kembo (5) had a solid game at LW.

Nantes 2-1 Lyon
Lloris (5) had a solid game but couldn’t do anything on both goals. Gassama (4) had a solid game, better than his mark shows IMO, and the penalty whistled against him is pure comedy. Djordjevic was injured after 15 minutes.

St Etienne 2-0 Le Havre
As I expected, Les Verts won clearly. Matuidi (5) had to play MB though and did all right, but the big story was Mirallas and Payet coming on as subs and cracking the game open. Mirallas had two assists and Payet had the first goal.
Nestor (4) had a solid game, but both goals came from his side, and that doesn’t spell good game.

Lille 1-1 Toulouse
Hazard came on too late to impact the game, and that’s a shame because his ability to break a defense with one dribble would have been useful. Cabaye (6) was impressive.
For Toulouse, M’Bengue (6) was OK and Capoue (6) did what he does best : play tough football.

Monaco 1-1 Sochaux
Pokrivac (5) had an awful game and Thuram was solid (6) though he could have done something on Santos’ goal.
Erding was subpar for Sochaux, while Carlao (5) was very useful both sides of the pitch. Much better than his mark indicates IMO. Jokic (5) was all right.

PSG 3-1 Le Mans
Bouhours (4) had a good game going forward, bringing danger a few times. He did suffer defensively, but who doesn’t when you face Sessegnon? Maïga (5) was OK, while Dossev (5) made bad choices, and Coutadeur (4) and Gervinho (5) had under-average games for their standards.

Lorient 1-0 Nancy
Gameiro (7) had yet another good game and yet another goal.

Grenoble 0-0 Auxerre
Riou (5) didn’t have too much to do. Narry (5) had a solid game, as usual. Quercia (4) still made bad choices.

Top 3
1- Kévin Gameiro : another game winning goal and a nice game all around
2- Kévin Mirallas : two assists after coming on the pitch? Not too shabby.
3- Dimitri Payet : finally a decisive play for him.

Flop 3
1- Lemoine : partly responsible for his team dropping two points
2- Quercia : please leave him on the bench!
3- Nestor : abused by Mirallas twice, finally score 2-0… hmmm, not good….

Highlights

Gameiro’s goal :