Bollaert does not usually do this
It doesn’t happen often. The Lens crowd is normally the kind that keeps pushing right to the whistle, even when nothing is going in.
Saturday was different. Thorgan Hazard got it first, jeered as he came off, and then the whole team caught it at full time. Lens had just lost 1-0 at home to Lorient. Second straight Ligue 1 defeat, after the 2-1 at Strasbourg.
The calendar offers nothing in return. Five days later, Les Sang et Or travel to Slavia Prague for their Champions League opener.
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Toppmoller will not point at the stands
Dino Toppmoller did not go looking for a scapegoat behind the goal. “At the end of the match, the team tried everything. We pushed, but we couldn’t put the ball in the net today,” he said, before turning to the boos: “I am not going to criticise the supporters because we have always felt them behind us. And if you do not win a match at the end, you have to accept the reaction.”
Florian Thauvin took the longer view. “We haven’t found our cruising speed yet. There have been a lot of changes in the team, in terms of players and staff,” said the captain, who insists he is not worried and is mostly relieved to be switching competitions: “It will do us good to move on quickly.”
The treatment room keeps filling up
The result is only part of it. Already without Maik Nawrocki and Samson Baidoo, Lens lost Matthieu Udol to a heavy knock on his right thigh and Yacine Titraoui to a hamstring problem in the same 90 minutes. Then came the avoidable red card for teenager Souleymane Sagnan late on, a bruising first Ligue 1 start for Hazard, and a performance from Abdallah Sima that never got going.
Toppmoller wants bodies and he is not hiding it. “We are eagerly waiting for the new players, including Jean-Clair Todibo, so he can bring a certain level of stability, calm as well in our play with the ball, and also defensively. If everyone comes back, we will be very strong.”
If everyone comes back. That is the catch, and Prague will not wait around for it.
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