Antonetti gives the call to arms

How to break the negative streak? This is the question Frédéric Antonetti asked himself at the beginning of the week. Since five match days, the team is struggling. The two defeats in as many derbies have marked the players. “The squad was hurt, the manager admits. The team is in the hard.”

He first studied the situation to try and rebuild on safer ground: “We planned to have a three-day camp in Carnac but I felt it wasn’t the best thing to do at the moment.” Everyone needed to gain some “physical and mental rest”.

Anger and return to basics

In training, he didn’t hesitate to raise his voice during the team’s sessions. In the aim to shake his squad. “It can be beneficial, Stéphane Dalmat admits. We all need a good slap once in a while in our career. At the moment, the coach is a bit pickier on some details. If it can get us moving forwards for the end of the season, this period will have been beneficial.”

This week, according to the coach, it was also time to “get back to the basics, our defending and attacking basics, simplicity and pleasure”. The aim, on the short term, is to go and beat Monaco, 17th in Ligue 1: “To come out of the difficulties, we need to win a game as fast as possible, the manager explains. To win it, we need to find back what used to be our force, great solidity and great solidarity, even though it can frustrate those who have a different vision of football.”

"A bit too KO in regard to our situation"

The Rennes staff also sought to give the young players more confidence, by showing them among other things, that they could have “scored goals” against Lorient in the first half.
"We’re a bit to K.O. in regard to our current situation », Frédéric Antonetti noticed. He explained to the players, that "if at the beginning of the season we had known that on 32nd match day we would be the outsider behind Paris and Lyon for third place, we would have rushed for it”.

"I hope the game in Monaco will be a new beginning, that it will be a catalyst for the end of the season, Stéphane Dalmat adds. And maybe, why not, bring back something great for the club.”
The midfielder observed that his young team-mates are not completely hermetic to the external context: “If you put too much pressure on this team, it will be unsettled.”. For the former Sochaux player, the target is to guarantee the fifth place first, but he doesn’t exclude a podium finish: “We aren’t too far. There is a possibility of finishing second or third. We will try to glean as many points as we can, and maybe manage a superb upset at the end of the season”.

Nicolas Auffray - Le Mensuel de Rennes

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