In his press conference, Lucien Favre explained that he was happy with his side’s second half performance.

Coach, it’s a small victory, but a victory all the same!

1-0 or 3-0, it’s 3 points. It was deserved on balance because we had quite a few chances. The first half was difficult, which wasn’t unexpected having seen Amiens’ previous matches, we needed to be patient. We were able to accelerate things a bit more in the second half, maybe because Amiens were a little bit tired. In the first half, we struggled to create chances, we couldn’t find a way through their defence.

The Gym are the best team in L1 based on the last 6 matches, with 5 wins and a draw…

We will continue with the same philosophy by taking match after match. The main thing is to make small progress in every game. We have a very young team: Srarfi and Saint Maximin are 20 years old, Tameze came from Valenciennes in the second division, Sarr and Burner are also young, Lees-Melou is also young at the top level… It moves forward step by step, very slowly but it’s not bad what we are doing. We have found stability. We need to make progress defensively and of course, offensively in our movement, the quality of our one-touch football, our crosses etc. Lots of work to do on a tactical level.

Balotelli started on the bench, was he not ready to start?

No. He wouldn’t have been able to play 65 minutes today. In only playing 25, it is still  possible for Tuesday. We will see if he can start or not.

The only goal of the game came from Lees-Melou, who hadn’t had much luck until then…

He was rewarded for his persistance. When things aren’t going well, you can’t dwell on it, you need to move forward, to remain positive. The goal was good, with a nice pass from Saint-Maximin, Lees-Melou likes getting into the middle. We could have scored a second to put the game to bed at the end.

Saint Maximin caused lots of problems for the Amiénois in the second half…

In the first, he struggled to get going because he played too deep. After the break, he played more directly against his full-back and the others couldn’t come back. It was better. Like the whole side in the second period.

You are going to Monaco on Tuesday, who were held by Montpellier.

Montpellier are a difficult side to face. They are very well organised defensively, I remember the game there. They concede very few goals, that’s their strength. This 0-0 against Monaco doesn’t surprise me.

Why did you leave Dante on the bench? 

The matches are building up. We play again on Tuesday. The satisfying thing is that we have no injuries this evening..

What can you tell us about the returning players like Jallet or Cyprien?

Jallet couldn’t have started in any case today, he got injured again for one week after he had returned to training. He only trained once with the side. Burner did very well, he was concentrated defensively and was good offensively. It’s a good reaction from him after the Monaco game where defensively it had been a bit complicated for him. For Cyprien it will come bit by bit. I try to put him on for 20 minutes, 30 minutes so that he comes back slowly. But you can’t dream, it will take time.

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