At the start of the Division Two season, newly-promoted St.Etienne were written off, given no chance of survival in a league where every single side, bar none, had better players, higher ratings, better depth, and everything else needed to stay in a division of this quality. Yet, with ten games to go, as we approach the home straight of what’s been a thrilling season, Les Verts remain outside the bottom four. There’s no doubt it’ll be tight and will go down to the wire, but the French side have proven that this game is not played on paper, and that with the right tactics, the right attitude, and a fair slice of luck, anybody is able to compete.
The season started off with a bang, 7 points in our first 4 matches, including a stunning 5-0 win away at Sunderland, before the wheels started to come off, slightly.
‘We’ve been a side who’s gone on a lot of runs this season, but these runs have tended to be no more than four or five matches.’ said Powell, who took over from Josh McMillan at the start of the season, ‘We’ve tended to go on a little run where results haven’t gone our way, and then all of a sudden ground out a few good results, and it’s been back and forth in that same vain for entire season. It’s worked well for us though. What it has allowed us to do is to avoid ever getting into a situation where it’s been a run of seven, eight, nine games without a win. When things have started to look bad we’ve found a way out. For example, when we won 2-1 away at Internazionale, we’d lost our previous three games in a row. Likewise when we won at Sampdoria, we’d lost our previous three before that as well.’
St.Etienne are, to an extent, on a similar run at the moment, having lost their last two against Villareal and Southampton, after having been on our best run of the season beforehand, where we won 4/6 matches, including an outstanding 3-1 win at Leverkusen.
Powell had this to say about Sunday evening’s home match against high-flying Sevilla ‘They’re an excellent side, having an excellent season. David’s built a wonderful team there and we’ll have to be at our best to get something. I’ve actually been slightly disappointed with how we’ve been at home. We’ve won five at home, which is as many as we’ve won away so we need to try and improve on that. It’s a crucial game for us though. Having lost our last two, we can’t afford to go on a run where we fail to pick up victories at this late stage of the season. I feel if we can pick up three wins, maybe four, that will do it for us and we’ll stay up in the division. I think we deserve it, because we’ve played so well in a league where, realistically, the vast majority of our players would be nowhere near other sides starting XI’s.’
Whatever the last 10 matches bring, St.Etienne will hold their heads high this season, and as they welcome Sevilla to the cauldron of noise awaiting them at the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium, they are determined to make it count, and pick up three more points on their road to survival.
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