Team Focus: Brilliant Benezet Sums Up Evian’s Predicament

"There are still six points to play for," insisted Evian Thonon-Gaillard’s coach Pascal Dupraz after Saturday’s defeat to Reims. A sortie for such a cliché, inevitably laden with impending doom, only compounded a crushing loss that leaves the Annecy-based club staring relegation to Ligue 2 firmly in the face. 

If the reddened eyes of Dupraz’s president, Joël Lopez, in the tunnel after the game didn’t tell him which way the wind was blowing, then the other results would have done the job for him. Saturday night’s latest instalment of the Ligue 1 relegation face-off brought a clutch of the interested parties into direct competition. After Caen set the bar with a stunning 3-0 win over Lyon in the early game, Reims’ win was mirrored by victories for Lorient, who won 4-0 at already relegated Metz, and Toulouse, who recovered from 2-1 down to beat Lille 3-2 by scoring twice in the final 10 minutes. 

The upshot of it all is that Evian find themselves third-bottom and - this is the key - 4 points behind Reims, in the last position of safety. Their own shortcomings were more than clear in a match that they lead through Mathieu Duhamel’s goal early in the second half. Evian’s defeat this weekend was their 21st of the season - only lost causes Lens have lost as many - and, crucially, 4 of those have arrived in the last 5 games. Overall, Dupraz’s side are winless in the last 6 matches. If they had held the leads they took in 3 of those fixtures, Evian would be a whopping 8 points better off, and sitting in a relatively comfortable 13th place.  

If the post-mortem is not quite ready to start, then Dupraz is already under scrutiny. Before we even got to the face-off with Reims, there was Caen’s masterful display. It was underpinned by a first-half brace by Nicolas Benezet, or "Benezet-ma", as L’Equipe’s Sunday headline referred to him. 

Benezet, having been bombed out of the Parc des Sports in the closing hours of the winter transfer window as part of a loan exchange for Duhamel, scored 2 of the goals which push his parent club closer to the trapdoor - Caen were only 2 points ahead of Evian at the start of play on Saturday. "We know all about his talent," enthused Caen coach Patrice Garande after the game, "but it’s his ability to defend that’s impressed me the most." 

That Benezet is working hard for his new club, and flourishing away from Evian, says a lot after he endured a notoriously difficult relationship with Dupraz. "When you feel good in your head," the player himself said pointedly after Saturday’s game, "then the rest follows." 

It’s not just this week that Benezet has shone. The 24-year-old has 4 goals in 4 starts for Caen (499 minutes played) and has gained a WhoScored rating of 7.04, having started just 7 times for Evian before Christmas (545 minutes), with his rating a much lower 6.32. He is more confident and more involved in his new surrounds, even he is still acclimatising - he is averaging 1.3 shots per game (compared to 0.7 in the first half of the season) and 0.7 key passes (compared to 0.2). All of his goals for Caen have been crucial, too, also taking in a stunning winner at Marseille in February and a key strike in last week’s draw at Nice. They’ve all been point-earners, essentially.  

It’s something Dupraz desperately needs right now. Even apart from the Benezet case, there are questions over his handling of Daniel Wass, undoubtedly the team’s star man over the last few seasons. The Dane’s goals from midfield meant that the departed Kévin Berigaud - 10 goals last season before joining Montpellier - was initially not missed. Wass has 8 goals for the season and 5 assists, but last scored in the reverse fixture at Reims in mid-December. In 2015, he has provided just 2 assists in 17 appearances.  

The wider feeling is that Wass’ attitude has been lacking - L’Equipe gave him a mark of 2/10 for his performance against Reims, justifying it by underlining his "lack of desire" and saying that "his head isn’t at Evian any more". The same player gained a WhoScored rating of 6.55 in the weekend defeat. It is common knowledge that Wass wanted to leave last summer and again in winter, and was frustrated not to be able to so, but clearly it has been the job of Dupraz to make him feel on board again, which hasn’t happened. The crucial penalty miss at Nice three weeks ago was the mark of an unhappy player, rather than a truculent one.

He is also marginalised back at right-back, as he was against Reims, with Gilles Sunu further forward on the right. The former Arsenal man did score with a streaky cross-cum-shot on the brink of half-time, but few would argue he has Wass’ passing or, indeed, his power. Wass wins 2.2 aerials per game, next to Sunu’s 0.9. Wass was reduced to long balls from deep against Reims (11 in all), resulting in just a 50% pass success rate. 

It’s a particular concern when creating is clearly a problem, with Evian having only 9 efforts on goal to Reims’ 14 on Saturday. Duhamel has scored 3 in 10 since his arrival, but has struggled to get involved, rating just 6.45 in those games and averaging 3.6 unsuccessful touches per match. 

Coupled with a defence that’s conceded 57 goals - the 3rd-worst in Ligue 1 this season - and things look bleak, but maybe Dupraz has a point when he says "nobody’s died". He knows Reims must beat Rennes at home on Saturday to be safe, especially given that their final match is away to Paris Saint-Germain. Evian’s part of the bargain is a tricky one, though. They face Champions League-chasing Saint Etienne on Saturday, a side that they’ve never beaten, before travelling to - wouldn’t you know - Caen. As things stand, Dupraz would settle for keeping hope alive for that long.

Can Evian haul themselves out of the relegation zone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below