In front of the press, Lucien Favre paid tribute to the reaction of his side, trailing and down to 10.

Lucien, how do you analyse this match?
From the beginning, we conceded a very quick goal, and it was more than avoidable. We tried to play, but we didn’t create many opportunities for ourselves. There were no probing runs in deep, but at least we had quite a bit of possession. But we really lacked support in the opponent’s box. What was important after Dante’s red card was to not concede a 2nd goal. We needed to stay organised, to not allow them to counter, to be able to have the time to reorganise things at half-time. That’s what we succeeded in doing, despite the penalty. If they had made it 2-0, in the current situation, it would have become very difficult to come back from, but Benitez saved it. It gave a second wind to the team. We saw the reaction of the players after Benitez’s stop. We also felt a certain nervousness in the opponent. Even with 10, we continued to play, we created “half-chances”, not very clear cut but we saw that there were some doubts in the other team. We got the penalty through Souquet who was played in well by Srarfi and at 1-1, the psychological conditions changed. Toulouse were pegged back at home, by a team playing with 10 men, they couldn’t get going, so we had the mental advantage at that moment. And then finally, a nice goal to get it to 2-1, at the best time, from a nice cross and a great finish.

Your coaching paid off, with some decisive changes!
The guys that came on, yes, but everyone. The save from Benitez, the fact that we didn’t concede a second goal after that etc. it’s all important. For the coaching, it came off today. What I appreciate more than anything else, is that even when we were trailing, we tried to play, intelligently. That means thinking about defending well and not getting hit on the counter. After the match against Lyon, we could have all thought that it would be difficult to react, the rection of the players was magnificent.

This victory, above and beyond the points that it brings, does it change what is now to come?
For the moment, it’s just three points. It’s clear that in our situation, it does a lot of good. Now, we need to savour this a bit and we will prepare for the match against Metz on Saturday. We are not looking any further than that for the moment. It will, without doubt, be difficult again.

This scenario, in any case, should help your side to regain some confidence…
It’s good that we took on board certain things, yes. The 1-0 is avoidable and we conceded it too quickly, it wasn’t even a real opportunity. It’s things like this that we need to take note of, to be concentrated and determined from the first minute until the 95th. For morale, it does some good, away from home, 10 against 11. But I don’t want us to rest on this win. It’s very positive, the players really gave their all, but it’s always the next match which counts.

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