Interview

Vieira: 'A lack of experience'

After the draw with Brest, the coach was left nursing regrets over how his players had handled being in control of the game.

Patrick, what's your feeling after this 2-2 draw?

It's a disappointment. When you lead 2-0 and you get pegged back…More than the result, it's our recurrent problems that worry me. Our lack of experience is costing us dear. Conceding that goal to make it 2-1 just before the half-time break gave them hope and hurt us psychologically. After it went to 2-2, we doubted, we were indecisive after that. We left too much space between the lines in the first half. We corrected that after the break, but going forward we didn't get in behind them, which prevented us from pushing them back.

In your opinion, is the youthfulness of your squad a reason for these problems?

We're not going to hide behind our lack of experience. I expect more of my players. I knew we had these problems at the start of the season, it's not a surprise. You just have to look at the number of high-level games the players had played, their age, to see that it would sometimes be difficult for us to handle a dip in form during the season. It's true that we have conceded a lot of goals during spells in which we have dropped off a bit in recent games.

The two goals you conceded could be described as comedy goals…

I don't know if they're comedy goals. Brest made their own luck. But it would have perhaps been different if we had gone in 2-0 up at the break. We have to try and be more disciplined positionally. We are our own worst enemies. We don't wait enough at certain times, we leave a lot of room at the back…

The positive thing is that your three summer signings were involved in the two goals.

Since the return to action in January, the players are better physically, we've seen their qualities more. This evening, they played rather well, but I expect more from them. Arnaud [Lusamba] coming off the bench gave us something extra. That gave us some verve and some technical quality in midfield.

After Nîmes, it's another opportunity missed to get into the top half of the table…

If we look closely at recent months, we've had the chance to move up the table several times, and sometimes to find ourselves in the group at the bottom. It's a strange league, very tight, but I don't look too much at the table. What I'm most concerned with is the quality of the play, and I try to understand and analyse why we don't manage to be more dangerous, to impose our playing style, and why we have suffered defensively.