Twenty-one names, and one obvious absence
Paulo Fonseca read out his squad on Friday evening for Saturday’s 8:45pm visit of Le Havre to the Groupama Stadium. Ruben Kluivert is not on the list.
The Dutch defender had a night to forget against Fenerbahce on Tuesday. Three days on, he is paying for it. Remi Himbert is the other man left out.
Khalis Merah goes the other way. The young midfielder makes the squad for the first time this season after a pre-season injury cost him the whole build-up.
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Home for the first time, and still sore
Lyon’s route to this fixture ran through Istanbul, a 1-2 second-leg defeat to Fenerbahce in the Champions League play-off, and a drop into the Europa League. Not the preparation anyone wanted for a first home league game.
The league table reads better. OL opened with a 2-0 win at Toulouse. Two goals, clean sheet, three points away from home, which gives Fonseca something to stand on.
The mood is still brittle, though. That trip left marks on and off the pitch, and a win on Saturday night would settle a lot of nerves in a hurry.
Le Havre arrive with nothing to lose
Zero points after round one. The Normandy club went down 1-0 at home to Monaco, a tight defeat in which they held their shape well enough.
The Groupama Stadium has not been kind to HAC in recent years. Saturday night fixtures in Ligue 1 tend to open up, though, and a Lyon back line short of a centre-half is an invitation.
That is the question hanging over the whole evening. Fonseca has to patch the defence without Kluivert, and Lyon have to decide whether three days is enough to forget Europe.
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