During his press conference, Lucien Favre expressed his appreciation at the reaction - during the game - of his side following the defeat in Monaco.

Coach, the Gym started perfectly this match against ASSE?
We started the game with rhtymn. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good. We scored a great goal. We had several chances, it is a shame we didn’t get it to 2-0. At the end of the day, a match becomes long with just a one goal lead. At 1-0, the other side can always get back into it.  You need to pressure high up the pitch, and to remain solid defensively. They created some dangerous chances, even though we had more opportunities than them. The second half was more difficult but in the end we got the 3 points.

Your side showed that it wasn’t affected by its defeat at Monaco…
​I already said it. It was a loss, that’s all. We shouldn’t exaggerate with a loss, nor with a victory.

Your players seemed to be fresh tonight.
We played on Saturday against Monaco, and so to play again four days later, there is no problem. We wanted to move, to get free from our markers, the players wanted the ball. But when we play like that, we need to be effective because we can always concede on the counter. With Hamouma or Monnet Paquet, they are dangerous on the counter.

For you, was the overall performance of your side more successful than in previous games?
We didn’t probe enough against Monaco. But what I take from that, were the defensive errors that we made there. In our recent games, we scored 3 goals at Guingamp who are a good side.

In his return to the side Belhanda was excellent!
Yes, even though he was playing out of position, he prefers to be the second striker. He played out wide and was able to eat up the space.

Monaco and Paris won yesterday, was your aim to not let them extend the gap at the top?
No, we wanted to concentrate on our game. Tonight, we played football. There are periods in a season. We started positively, we had some very good times after that, and now recently, it has been a bit more difficult, but there are reasons for that.

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