Team Focus: What's Wrong with Montpellier?

What a difference a year makes. 12 months ago Montpellier were the league’s sensational story, winning four out of their first five games as what was supposed to be just a good run of form turned out to be the form of Champions. Now with five games gone this season Montpellier are 16th in Ligue 1 with only one win so far this season, so where has it all gone wrong?

A few players have departed from the side that won the league last season. Olivier Giroud moved to Arsenal and Geoffrey Dernis moved north to Brest on a free transfer. Giroud’s goals are the first obvious place to look; the striker scored 21 goals last season and was easily the star of La Paillade. However, with five games gone Giroud had only scored two of his 21 goals and his replacement, Emanuel Herrera, also has two goals so far this season, though his performances have been far from impressive.

Outside of his two goals Herrera has only managed nine shots on goal, averaging 1.8 shots a game and with teammate Younes Belhanda averaging two a game this just isn’t good enough from your leading frontman. Last season Giroud won, on average, 3.7 aerial duels a game, while the Argentine frontman has only won five all season. Without Giroud the whole focal point of Montpellier’s game plan has gone and it will take longer than five games for Rene Girard to transform this team into a new look side.

One strong point to Montpellier’s season was the consistency of Girard’s team selection. Over the 38 game season only 20 players started a game for Montpellier. In the first five games Girard started 15 different players, with Geoffrey Dernis, John Utaka, Olivier Giroud and four others starting all five matches and four players starting four of the five games.

In contrast only three players have featured in all five games for Montpellier this season. Goalkeeper Geoffrey Jourdren, Herrera and Nigerian forward John Utaka are the only ever-presents. With only five games gone Girard has already started 18 different players; only two off the total used last season, so there is a very strong chance that Montpellier will exceed that total this time around.

Along with new signing Herrera another player yet to find his form is winger Anthony Mounier. Signed from Nice for €3.25million the former Lyon player impressed in pre-season but picked up an injury before the season kicked off and has only managed one start, with two appearances coming off the bench. He was meant to take over from Dernis as the left footed playmaker, adding pace and skill to the mix, but so far it hasn’t quite happened. Mounier has managed just one key pass, one shot and one successful dribble and Montpellier will hope the winger will offer a lot more in the coming weeks.

Another of the group of summer signings failing to impress is centre-back Daniel Congre. The former Toulouse captain has looked a shell of the player that only missed one game all season for Le Téfécé in the last campaign. As a team Toulouse only conceded 34 goals last season, less than one a game and Montpellier have already let in eight goals, including three against newly promoted Stade de Reims last Friday. That will be a game Congre will want to forget.

His stats aren’t significantly down on last season. For Toulouse he averaged 2.1 tackles, 3 interceptions, 6.6 clearances and gave away 1.1 fouls per game and this season he is averaging 3 tackles, 1.4 interceptions, 6.4 clearances and just 1 foul a game while his rating of 6.63 according to WhoScored is only 0.20 down on last year. It just seems that when Congre is called upon in the big moments he is making some crucial errors. The problem could be that he has been played at both right back and centre back, with fellow defender Yanga-M’Biwa constantly rumoured to be moving away during the summer Congre may not have been sure if he would be Yanga’s replacement or his teammate. This is definitely not a settled team.

Of course, as well as some poor performances there have been some excellent bright points. Benjamin Stambouli has started the season strongly in midfield, averaging 2.2 tackles and 2.2 interceptions a game. Further forward Remy Cabella has impressed in both the league and Champions League with two goals, 1.2 shots and 1.2 successful dribbles per game. He is constantly looking for the ball and makes himself available as much as possible and is a real spark in the Montpellier attack. After coming on as a sub against Reims it took him less than 60 seconds to level the score with his first touch and his instant impact showed how influential he could be this season.

All in all Montpellier aren’t quite in a state of emergency as the signs are there that they are capable of playing the football that made them so successful last season. Giroud will be a huge loss, which was never in doubt, but when the new signings begin to gel with the exciting youth players, Montpellier shouldn’t be far away from the team that was so impressive last season.