Halfway through the season, Montpellier HSC are in the lowest place in Ligue 1, as they have been for almost the entire season. With just two wins in their first seventeen matches, they have collected just nine points and are currently seven points away from safety.
A 3-1 defeat to fellow strugglers SCO Angers, at home no less, this weekend has created an understandably despondent mood at the club, who won the Ligue 1 title just over a decade ago. That win now feels like a distant memory for those at La Paillade, who face the prospect of relegation to Ligue 2.
Jean-Louis Gasset replaced Michel Der Zakarian earlier this season in an attempt to save the club. It is an agreement that is not yet having the desired effect now that the slide continues. Gasset, however, has no regrets about coming out of retirement to take the job.
“If I had stood in front of the television today after turning down the job in October, I would have said to myself, 'You've gone crazy.' I would rather suffer by being with them than suffer by being outside of them,” Gasset said after the defeat to Angers.
And suffer La Paillade are. Gasset did not shy away from that fact. “You have to face reality: it was difficult; now it's a mission impossible. Halfway through the season we have lost to Le Havre (second from bottom in Ligue 1), Saint-Étienne (which occupies the relegation play-off spot), and now at home to Angers… we will have a small miracle,” said the manager of Montpellier. With AS Monaco next, it doesn't get any easier.
GFFN | Luke Entwistle
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