In his post-match press conference, Patrick Vieira expressed his regrets at his side’s inability to kill the game off.

Patrick, before you came in, Alain Casanova said that he saw two very different halves of football...

We saw the same thing. I think that Toulouse deserved the draw. They had a very good second half. Unfortunately we were unable to score the second goal to put the game to bed. There were moves that we played very poorly, where we made the wrong decisions and were a bit too selfish at times. They pushed and we gave them the chance to get back on level terms, even though on the whole, I think that we were solid at the back. 

You didn’t have much of the ball after the break...

Yes, but we were set up quite well and conceded very few chances. What is frustrating me, are those poor choices that we took in the attacking phases of the game, the way we played as a team. We were too selfish, we are paying for the fact that there were players who thought of themselves before thinking of the team. We needed to score the second goal. We also had chances in the first half.   

This result is a slight hiccup in your race for Europe...

It’s a hiccup but it doesn’t stop us from dreaming, there are still games to be played. It will be very complicated and difficult. Our objective is to finish as high as possible and we will see in the final five games of the season whether we can play for something. This evening, I am disappointed because we were lacking as a team in attack. I hope that this will serve as a lesson going forward. 

Your team struggled to trouble the opponent, apart from the runs from Atal and Saint-Maximin…

The other way would have been to play more as a team. You speak about Youcef and Alan. This evening, they also made bad choices and it’s one of the reasons that we didn’t have many chances. You have to play with your teammates in order to cause the opposition problems. I know that everyone thinks that these two players can make the difference, but they need the others in order to shine.  

How can you explain the goal you conceded?

It’s a situation where we dominated in the air, an area that we had done pretty well in until then, given the height advantage that Toulouse have. We lacked a bit of luck from the strike as it was deflected on its way through. 

Olivier Boscagli started the match, his first match since December.

Patrick Burner had a problem with his groin during training. It wasn’t planned for him to play, but Olivier had a very good match. I am happy for him because he has been through some difficult times. He played as he has done in the last few weeks of training. Now he needs to find that consistency.

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