A rotten first half, then a complete turnaround
Nothing. That is roughly what Auxerre produced in the opening 45 minutes on Sunday, and they went in a goal down because of it.
The 2-1 final score against Brest flatters AJA considerably. Will Still knew it, and he did not bother waiting for the press conference to say so. The manager admitted he had given his players both barrels in the dressing room at the break. “You have to be able to say things as they are when it is nowhere near good enough! Our first half was a complete disaster,” the former Reims boss told L1+.
His complaint was not tactical, or not in the way people assume. “This was not about the system, and what annoyed me most was that we had got dragged into the sort of match Brest wanted to play,” he added.
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Two substitutions, and the afternoon flipped
Romain Faivre and Naouirou Ahamada replaced Remy Labeau-Lascary and Arthur Piedfort after the interval. Neither needed long.
Still wanted that noted. “We saw the worst and then the best possible version of AJA! The most important thing is that we were able to react and show something different,” he explained.
He also repeated what he had told them before sending them on. “I told them they could be unhappy that I had not picked them to start, and that it was their job to change the game. When the chance comes, you have to grab it. They did that brilliantly.”
Two wins on the spin, and a defence that still worries him
Auxerre have now backed up the 1-0 against Nice. That is a run, modest but real, and a long way from the opening weeks when the back line was getting picked apart most weekends.
The away form is the next question. Still’s side have paid the steepest price for their lapses outside the Stade de l’Abbe-Deschamps, and none of Sunday’s second half answers that yet.
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