Transfers. Fabien Lemoine has signed a four year contract with AS Saint-Étienne this Wednesday. At 24, the midfielder saw his prospects of playing time reduce in the first team, and decided to leave in order to become a starting fixture in Ligue 1 again.
By deciding to leave Saint-Étienne, Fabien Lemoine has closed a four year experience at the club. A professional since 2007, the player from Fougeres had had to wait for six months, and the replacement of Pierre Dréossi with Guy Lacombe, before discovering the world of Ligue 1, with a near-immediate success.
Soon, Lacombe made him one of his starting players. From January 2008 to June 2009, the time during which “Moustache” remained at the reins of the Rennes professional squad, Lemoine only missed one Ligue 1 game and started all but one games at midfield. When Antonetti replaced Lacombe, questions were asked about the man who had managed to eject Étienne Didot out of the starting eleven. Would he continue his ascension or experience a bit of a stall? Lemoine brushed all the concerns away and proved he could convince another manager as well.
In 2009-2010, Antonetti installed him as a member of his first eleven, with thirty-one Ligue 1 games played. Along with the emergence of M’Vila, the pair of youngsters affirmed itself at defensive midfield, forcing Cheyrou to leave the club in January alongside the disappointing Inamoto. The following year, Lemoine started the season as a key member of the squad once again, but the dramatic accident suffered in Nancy on August 14th 2010 put his career in standby.
Despite the ablation of one kidney, despite pessimistic diagnosis promising him to miss the whole season, Lemoine was soon back on the pitch. Four months after the terrible scenes at Stade Marcel-Picot, the fairy tale took life against Valenciennes, in the form of a last minute, match-winning assist. The beautiful story and its “Armorican” happy ending triggered the admiration of all: Lemoine was the object of a long TV Documentary and of several articles in the national press.
Though, after this spectacular return, the magic didn’t last. The coaching staff preserved their players, avoiding to ask too much of him in the following month after the amount of effort he put in coming back so quickly. A sensible choice or a mistake by Antonetti, each could make their own opinion on the matter. But although he finally played another eighteen games (for six starts) after his operation, Lemoine was never able to return to a clear starting position in the Rennes eleven.
The Breton still believed in a return, and took only a week of holidays last June in order to follow an individual training program with Nicolas Dyon, and report back to training in optimal condition. However, the arrival of Julien Féret changed the deal completely and brought in a tactical re-organisation including a play-maker. With M’Vila an indisputable starter at defensive midfield – and Mandjeck his substitute – only one position remained to be taken, with five possible pretenders to claim it (Dalmat, Doumbia, Lemoine, Tettey and Pajot).
During the pre-season, the Breton admitted that he started the year with handicaps, and notably his two-match ban for the beginning of the Ligue 1 season. “There is a lot of us, it’s true. But this is only the beginning of the season. Things will refine little by a little”, he judged in an interview to Ouest-France. It did, but the first decisions taken by Antonetti did not seem to favour him. Left out of the squad for the double confrontation against Rustavi, Lemoine found himself in Loudéac with the youngsters rather than in Tbilisi with his usual team-mates. It is not clear whether his suspension played a role, but he was visibly - and momentarily?- not included in his manager’s tactics.
Still talking to Ouest-France, Lemoine warned at mid-July that he would find it difficult to be contented with the status of substitute. “I’ve considered moving elsewhere, he affirmed then. I’m young, I love the game and I want to play”. In order to reach his goal, to become a starter in Ligue 1 again, the midfielder will try his luck in Saint-Étienne, where he will face a solid competition with captain Loïc Perrin, midfield recruit Jérémie Clément, and promising youngster Josuha Guilavogui.
Although the Rennes management seemed to be willing to keep him at the club, it is hard to believe that his place remained in the starting eleven. His transfer has much significance in terms of symbolism, with the start of an important player trained at the club, and born in the Ille-et-Vilaine department too. As Laurent Huard before him – who was also born in Fougeres –, Lemoine’s career will continue in green rather than in red and black. A colour the Breton has always liked, since he admitted during his first press conference at Rennes, that AS Saint- Étienne posters were covering the walls of his bedroom as a kid.
- Photo : srfc.frenchwill.fr
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