In front of the press, Patrick Vieira focused on the importance of the result, without forgetting some of the things that his side has lacked.   

Patrick, what do you take away from this match? 

To qualify, that was our objective. It’s true that the final twenty minutes were a bit complicated but you have to accept that you will suffer because matches are never simple. When Auxerre pushed in the second half, we struggled to impose our style and play and we were struggling a bit. We will hold onto the good first half performance and the qualification.

Reasons to be satisfied with the brace from Walter particularly…

For Rémi, it’s more than the goal because his performance pleased me. He was consistent, very good from start to finish. I am happy for him because he hasn’t had many opportunities to play until now. That’s what I expect of players, to stand up and be counted when I call upon them.  

Do you hope that the goal for Myziane can be a trigger for him? 

The goal was going to come. The important thing is that he works for the team. The opportunity to score was going to come at one stage or another. His performance on a whole was quite good, but it’s true that finding the back of the net will do him some good.  

After your win at Bordeaux on Sunday, can we start taking about a run?

It’s a bit early still, it’s only the second match. Of course, victories give confidence for the side but there are still a lot of things to improve. We put ourselves in danger when losing balls that we shouldn’t lose. We concede goals that we shouldn’t concede. There are moments in the match where we lacked maturity, experience and agression. We give too many opportunities away for my liking. We need to learn, but to learn pretty quickly.

How do you explain the end of the game and the difficulty in managing the match? 

It might be the game management. It’s also my responsibility. Physically we dropped a bit. Players played in roles that they are not used to playing in. I expected tough moments, but we still managed to win the game. It’s a good thing for the club to be in the next round.

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