Lyon top the table after Ligue 1’s first match day after a 4-0 win over Strasbourg – an emphatic validation for their reconfigured attack
By Adam White and Eric Devin for Get French Football News
It seemed too familiar for Lyon in the early going, even if the faces were different. Nabil Fékir is flagged offside, Mariano Díaz finds himself in a good position but shoots straight into the hands of the Strasbourg goalkeeper Bingourou Kamara, and Memphis Depay, hugging the touchline, foolishly concedes a throw-in. Fékir and Lyon’s three other attackers, Depay, Díaz and Bertrand Traoré, looked set to dazzle without any end product, their skill on the ball for nought as they struggled to break down a side who looked dangerous on the counter.
Without the sublime finishing of Alexandre Lacazette and the inventiveness of Mathieu Valbuena, Lyon’s attack looked dire indeed, portending a potentially long season of underachievement. It also seemed set to offer a firm rebuke to the club’s hierarchy as to their buying strategy. The sums Lyon recouped for Lacazette and the midfielder Corentin Tolisso were impressive but in turning them into Traoré and Díaz, having bought Depay in January, the team’s tactic of purchasing younger players (Fekir, a month past his 24th birthday, was the oldest player in the front six on Saturday) who had seemingly failed to live up to their potential at the world’s biggest clubs looked a specious policy.
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