Timothée Kolodziejczak : "Solid and united"

Are you treating this new match against Dijon as an opportunity for revenge?

We have the desire to go win there by thinking once again about the beating in the Coupe de France that injured us. We don’t want revenge but we have the necessary pride to secure a positive outcome. It’s a match that we’ve sincerely forgotten. Friday, it’ll be a very important match on our road to the European Cup. It is imperative that we secure a victory.

Is it easier to accept defeat against PSG than against another team?

We know that PSG is on top. We played a good match, we were solid and we lost due to a masterstroke. It’s a shame, but we know that we won’t play Paris every week. I think that the state of mind of the players was good.

You’ll now have to go earn points far from the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium…

We knew how to do so in Guingamp in a complicated match. We’ll have to do so again Friday. The match against Rennes was an outlier and the score doesn’t reflect our performance. We must do better as an away team starting this Friday. To be in the Top 5, you have to win as an away team.

The team will unfortunately be reduced due to the injuries from Friday evening.

In a season, there are moments like that. We have a team, youths who train regularly with us. We remain solid and united. We’ll inevitably make it by keeping this in mind. Everyday, the experienced players speak with everyone. There will only be youths with us this weekend. We’re going to put them in the best conditions. Among ourselves, we’re always positive. There are 13 matches remaining, many points to take. We’re still on the path to the European Cup. There are important deadlines coming up.

Do you see this season as one of the closest in Ligue 1?

That’s hard to say. Many teams are close in the rankings. There is an enormous amount who adopt a low pressure defense, who look for opportunities to counter. We’re ASSE. We owe it to ourselves to ensure positive results every weekend. You have to fight teams like Dijon in order to be in the Top 5. And we owe it to ourselves to finish in the Top 5. A qualification for the Europa League would be a very good thing.