In his press conference, the Aiglons’ coach Patrick Vieira was rather disappointed with his side’s performance, whilst at the same time congratulating their solidity.

Patrick, what do you take away from this  0-0 at Guingamp this evening?
What you need to take away is that we go home with a point, and really nothing else. Guingamp had chances to score, they need points and they can be disappointed not to have taken them. For us, it’s disappointment because we didn’t play well enough, even though we were solid defensively. On the whole, there was a lot of waste in attack. We have seen again this evening that we lack presence in the box, but it’s my job as coach to find solutions to improve that. I tried some quick changes but it didn’t work this evening.

A word on the reaction of Balotelli as he came off?
I am quite satisfied when a player isn’t happy to come off, that means that he wants to play. But you also have to understand that my role is to make the choices. I am not the personal coach of Balotelli, Saint-Maximin, Dante or Cyprien but the coach of OGC Nice and I have decisions to make, which I take responsibility for. You just need to be fair with the players, and I try to be as fair as possible. As for Mario, he needs to continue working. This evening, it was the team’s performance in attack that wasn’t very good. Allan and Mario were struggling, but in the same way as the rest of the team.

The positive is the solidity of your side who have now gone five matches without conceding a goal…
It’s important for us and it’s positive. Walter made a superb stop at the end. He has always been there in the difficult moments, when the team has needed him. I hope it will continue, he is in very fine form. This evening, he made important saves for the team.

Can we take the substitution of Saint-Maximin at half-time as a punishment?
Not at all, I am not into punishments. My approach is to be fair to the squad. I make decisions, that at times are good, and at others not so good. But that is my role.

The changes you made, are they linked to the number of games to come in December?
Not at all. The choices this evening were only based on the game tonight.

Guingamp have a reputation for dropping off physically at the end of games this season. Did you get that feeling?
I think that their fans were there for them. Guingamp have had some difficult times, but have always been able to rely on their fans to help them. They didn’t drop off physically even though when studying the team, we had seen that they concede quite a lot of goals in the final quarter of an hour. We created one or two opportunities at the end, particularly for Olivier (Boscagli), but we were slightly clumsy.

Since you went with a 3-5-2, the team has really found solidity at the back, but is struggling offensively. Do you think you will need to change the system in order to be more dangerous in attack?
The balance of the team is the important thing. 5-3-2, 4-3-3 etc... a formation isn’t everything,  the balance and the animation that you put in is what counts. I need to make the players understand what I want from them in attack. We need to continue to work and I need to find the right way to explain to the players, so that we can be more dangerous in attack. It’s a positioning issue, we need to attack the space more, so that we have more presence in the opponent’s box. We have lots of things to work on! But the points that we are picking up allow us to have confidence.

---