Jean-Louis Gasset: "Maybe the beginning of something "

Did anything that happened during the match make you doubt a successful outcome?

A bit. When we made a mistake like the one that let Caen score, we said to ourselves that the match is off to a rocky start. But we had to make sure that we didn’t get worked up. On the contrary, we had to continue playing and that’s what we did. We even created three or four openings to score during the first half.

What did you say to the players during half time?

I just corrected a few things because Caen had only one shot on net during the first period. Football hasn’t been fair to us but during certain dangerous periods like that one you can’t let yourself get worked up. I told Stéphane Ruffier that it was nothing compared to the number of times we’ve said "thank you" to him. Everyone makes mistakes and with him, it’s extremely rare. At the end of the match, he thanked all of his teammates for correcting the blunder that he made. He knows that the most important thing is the final score and that the goal he conceded is inconsequential.

Are you satisfied with the performance of your players during the second half?

The starting players played well and Diony like Nordin had a really good start to the game. Loïs (Diony) could have scored two goals and Arnaud (Nordin) demonstrated great ball handling throughout the match. That’s what he was doing with the reserve team at the beginning of the season and now he continues to do just that with the professional team. Last season, we had already fallen behind against Caen before winning the match 2-1. It was the match that began our undefeated streak (8 victories, 5 tie games).

The week with three matches is starting off well.

Yes but the negative point is Mathieu Debuchy’s injury. It’s the sector where we have the least number of players. I was counting on making him work hard against Toulouse but right now I’ll no longer be able to proceed in this way because even if the injury is not very serious, it’s still penalizing. Today, we have four defenders for four positions, so this might lead us to bring some of our young players into play.