Team Focus: Nervous Evian Drive Poor Pascal Dupraz to Distraction

It was a true collector’s item. After a failure by the officiating team to spot an offside had led to a late Junior Tallo equaliser for Ajaccio at Evian Thonon Gaillard on Saturday evening, referee Amaury Delerue came out to face the cameras to apologise on behalf of himself and his assistants. It was “a clear error,” admitted Delerue, who went on to apologise to Evian and their supporters. “Be sure that we’re already working to make sure that this sort of mistake won’t happen again.”

The situation was perhaps made even more unique by embattled Evian coach Pascal Dupraz actually accepting Delerue’s apology. “Players make mistakes,” he said, “and I make mistakes myself. Equally, referees can make them.” As well as being magnanimous, Dupraz is right. His team are now nervously looking over their shoulders, just four points ahead of third-bottom Valenciennes, due to their own errors rather than anybody else’s.

Dupraz had not been so sanguine when Tallo’s leveller hit the net. With his face contorted with anguish, he hammered the roof of his technical area’s bench with both hands. He has been here many times before with his team, and often looked at the end of his tether with his charges. If the lack of a call on Tallo’s goal didn’t help them, Evian’s passive defending in the ensuing passage of play was what ultimately cost the side, and their boss knew it. 

The Annecy-based side are paying dearly for their slip-ups at present. Since they registered a shock win over Paris Saint-Germain at the start of December, they have won just one of 11 Ligue 1 matches – and that against notoriously poor travellers Bastia at the Parc des Sports. The two weaknesses that really leap off the page in Evian’s WhoScored team characteristics are finishing scoring chances and protecting the lead. There are myriad faults in between, but these are the recurring difficulties that have left Dupraz tearing his hair out.

Against rock-bottom Ajaccio, who by the admission of their very own president Alain Orsoni have been planning for life in Ligue 2 since before Christmas, Evian displayed both of these traits boldly. They had 15 efforts on goal but just 3 on target. It is a recurring theme. When Ligue 1 resumed in January with an away game at high-flying Saint Etienne, Dupraz’s team had 11 shots. They got just 1 on target – less than any other visitors to the Geoffroy-Guichard this season - and made the short trip home empty-handed.

Newly-signed forward Túlio De Melo could be forgiven for a bit of ring-rustiness; it was his first Ligue 1 start of the season after being on the sidelines at Lille, and accordingly he only managed to get 1 of his 5 efforts at goal on target. Evian need De Melo to hit the ground running – only bottom two Ajaccio and Sochaux have scored less than their tally of 21 goals in 23 games. They have just 2 goals in 5 league games since the winter break.

This lack of a clinical eye keeps costing them in front of goal. In 2014’s first home game, against Marseille, Evian had 14 shots to the visitors’ 9 but still went down 2-1. Half of those opportunities had been created from set-pieces, which they rely heavily on. Dupraz’s hope will be that De Melo, who stands at 193cm, will be able to make the most of these, because his team are simply not creating enough in open play. Only Cedric Barbosa is delivering key passes on a regular basis – 1.8 per game, compared to Daniel Wass with 0.9, Modou Sougou’s 0.8 and Olivier Sorlin’s 0.7.

The late concession against Ajaccio demonstrated another element of Evian’s game. It was the fourth time in the last 10 Ligue 1 games that they had dropped points from a winning position. Their current tendency to shoot themselves in the foot maybe what is driving Dupraz to such distraction, as he looks eaten away by nerves on the touchline. His team look similarly jittery as the relegation battle tightens. Displays such as last week’s at Lyon, when Jonathan Mensah’s needless red card was immediately followed by Kévin Berigaud’s mistake to gift Alexandre Lacazette a match-clinching second goal, are a case in point.

Maybe Evian’s current struggles are just natural gravity. The large investment mooted on promotion in 2012 has never materialised, and the club’s continued attempts to be allowed to play at Geneva’s Stade de Suisse remind us that generating cashflow is a problem. In this context holding onto the club’s best players becomes impossible. Saber Khalifa has been greatly missed since his exit to Marseille. The Tunisian scored 13, provided 3 assists and delivered a key pass every game in his final season at the club.

Yet they are struggling to get the most out of their existing assets as well. Barbosa’s 4 assists are welcome, but he is yet to open his goalscoring account this season after hitting 8 last term. Berigaud’s early flurry of goals suggested he would be able to make up for Khalifa’s departure, but he has failed to score since his 6th goal of the season, against Bordeaux, in late September.

There is some hope. Marco Ruben’s goal against Ajaccio was his first since arriving on loan from Dynamo Moscow – and was his first in league competition since leaving Villarreal in 2012 – while new arrival Kassim Abdallah showed signs that he could be a good replacement for the departed Brice Dja Djédjé at right-back. The WhoScored average player position chart from their match report against Ajaccio showed Abdallah consistently taking up advanced positions, a feature of Dja Djédjé’s game that could be missed.

Clearly Evian need leadership. Dupraz, a head coach almost by default whose position has frequently been the subject of speculation, may not be the answer. Certainly he must put his current tension to one side if he is to transmit the sang-froid to his team that they need.

Will Evian survive the drop this season? Let us know in the comments below