Lyon Journey – 14. Stay or Leave?

It is the end of season 2020/21 which means it is the time to evaluation our team and have a look at what we achieve in this season. In Ligue 1, we finished at the 2^nd position with 90 points, 10 points lesser than last season and 15 points behind the current champion PSG. We are the runner-up of French Cup and Trophee des Champions this season, losing both Final to our rival PSG. In terms of Champions League, we are knocked out in Quarter Final by Real Madrid, but our performance is much better compared to last season. We successfully hit all the board expectations across all competitions, however, I reckon we could do better than this.

Board Expectation vs Reality

In terms of the competitions, the board only expects us to qualify for the Europa League which is finishing between 4^th to 6^th position in the league. We exceed the expectation with a much better result, finishing at the 2^nd position. In Champions League, the board only wants us to be competitive, which again we hit the expectation and played extremely well in the competition. The board sees French Cup as a quite important competition. We did reach the final, but we did not lift the trophy unfortunately. Trophee des Champions is not important, and we only finished as the runner-up.

Moving on to the club culture, the board is delighted that we develop players using the club’s youth system. Indeed, I feel like our youth coaching system is great and we do have a couple of young prospects in the team. In addition, our transfer budget isn’t that high, so I have to develop our young players instead of making signings. We did produce great young players this season, for example Maxence Caqueret, Melvin Bard and Amine Gouiri.

I am always a fan of attacking football, so playing attacking football isn’t a problem for me. The board is also very pleased with me signing players under the age of 23 for the first team. I have signed Thiago Almada, Cristian Romero, Arthur Zagre and they are all under the age of 23. However, I struggled to sign players based in France. Almada and Romero are both from Argentina, other new signings like Hakim Ziyech is from Eredivisie and Riccardo Orsolini is from Serie A.

Other than that, due to the high effectiveness we have in our set pieces, the board actually loves to see us playing more for set pieces. However, I am not a fan of the instruction Play for Set Pieces, but more prefer to fluid attacking and entertaining football. Anyways, the board seems satisfied with the playing style even though I did not focus on our set pieces.

Overall, I’m happy that we are on the right track and having a wonderful relationship with the board.

Top 5 performers

Now, let’s come back to the usual stuff we do after a season, analysing some of our best players. After looking at the average ratings, these are the 5 players that have been sensational over the season, most importantly they are some surprises here – Houssem Aouar, Memphis Depay, Maxence Caqueret, Moussa Dembele Cristian Romero.

Aouar and Depay are expected to be on the list as they did have great performance at the first half of the season. Dembele started slow in the first half, but immediately climbed back up on January. Surprisingly, Caqueret and Romero, two of our youngsters made it to the list.

Houssem Aouar

Aouar has been absolutely incredible since the start of the season. His average rating was 7.46 at the first half of the season. He remains his coolness on the pitch and continue delivers great performance at the second half of the season. By the end of the season, his average rating was higher than before – 7.48. Below are the key stats.

• 13.7km distance covered per 90 (highest in the team)
• 87 fouls against (highest in the team)
• 21 chances created (2^nd highest in the team)
• 11 goals and 10 assists (2^nd highest assists in the team)
• 63 key passes (3^rd highest in the team)
• 3.32 dribbles per game
• 2 Player of The Match

Memphis Depay

Depay undoubtedly is the best players in the team. Again, he has been on fire in this season. Even though he suffers with some injury this season, he recovers fast and delivers great performance again and again. Below are the key stats.

• 17 goals and 22 assists (highest assists in the team & 2^nd highest goals in the team)
• 0.69 assists per 90 (highest in the team)
• 160 minutes on pitch per goal (2^nd highest in the team)
• 53% shot on target ratio (3^rd highest in the team)
• 18 chances created (3^rd highest in the team)
• 13.4km distance covered per 90 (3^rd highest in the team)
• 8 Player of The Match

Maxence Caqueret

Maxence Caqueret has been a big surprise for us in this season. He has only been promoted to the first team this season. Caqueret made 11 appearances for us last season and he managed to provide 3 assists. After the game against Dijon FC on October, he caught my attention and I decided to give him more game time. He didn’t disappoint me at all and in fact he replaced Jean Lucas from the starting 11. Below are the key stats.

• 98 key passes (highest in the team)
• 71.17 passes completed per 90 (2^nd highest in the team)
• 2.30 tackles per game (2^nd highest in the team)
• 14 chances created (5^th highest in the team)
• 4 goals and 7 assists
• 4 Player of The Match

Moussa Dembele

Moussa Dembele – our goalscoring machine. The Frenchman had an injury at the middle of the season. However, he still manages to make 40 appearances across all competition this season. He is a big game performer, scoring big goals and very compose at the front of the goal. Below are the key stats in this season.

• 29 goals and 5 assists (highest goals in the team)
• 0.78 goals per 90 (highest in the team)
• 115 minutes on pitch per goal (highest in the team)
• 109 key headers (highest in the team)
• 56% shots on target ratio (2^nd highest in the team)
• 8 Player of The Match

Cristian Romero

Another youngster that surprised me this season is Cristian Romero. He has been playing alongside our best defender Jason Denayer. Who knows maybe he has taken Denayer’s seat and crowned as the best defender in the team? Below are the key stats in this season.

• 4.75 headers won per 90 (highest in the team)
• 104 interceptions made (2^nd highest in the team)
• 2.70 interceptions per 90 (2^nd highest in the team)
• 183 headers won (2^nd highest in the team)
• 61 key headers (4^th highest in the team)
• 94% tackle completion ratio
• 6 goals
• 2 Player of The Match

Awards

Furthermore, let’s have a look at the End of The Season Awards. Memphis Depay once again scoops the Fans’ Player of the Season with 44% of votes. Moussa Dembele and Maxence Caqueret only got 24% and 20% respectively. Jeff Reine-Adelaide is awarded the Goal of the Season where he scored a long-range volley against Montpellier. Cristian Romero is the signing of the season while Maxence Caqueret is the Young Player of the Season.

Some interesting names appear on Team of The Season. Riccardo Orsolini beat Jeff Reine-Adelaide and Bertrand Traore in the right winger position. Jean Lucas is chosen by the fans to play in the central midfielder instead of Lucas Tousart. Theo Hernandez, our new signing from the winter transfer, beat Melvin Bard in the left back position.

However, Melvin Bard did get himself into the Stars Team of the Season. Basically, the All Stars Team is like PSG but Maxence Caqueret and Melvin Bard did get themselves into the list. I am very proud of these boys.

Ligue 1 XI of the Season looks fair. 8 players from PSG, 1 from OGC Nice, 1 from AS Monaco and 1 from Lyon. Our only player who gets himself into the team is our striker Moussa Dembele. Neymar just beat our best player Depay at the left winger position and Marquinhos and Kimpembe beat Cristian Romero and Jason Denayer as well because they have more clean sheets. Fair enough.

Stay or Leave?

So, we are coming down to the main focus in this chapter. I have been with Lyon for 2 seasons. We already won the league and the cup at the first season, so I am going to say I have a successful career in France. Looking at the jobs that are available, some of the teams caught my attention, which makes me wonder should I stay with Lyon or should I leave for a new challenge.

There are three teams that I am very interested in – the Spanish giant Atletico Madrid, Wolverhampton Wanderers in English Premier League, and Fiorentina in Italian Serie A.

Conclusion

I will be setting up a poll on my Twitter (@abt_fm) and you all will be the decider. Should I stay or leave? I guess I will leave this question for you guys! Thank you for reading the Lyon Journey, I will see you guys soon. Take care!

Poll: https://twitter.com/abt_fm/status/1250729599438163968?s=20