KPatterson

Wednesday 16th July 2003

Despite the fact that I said (less than a week ago) that I wouldn’t be adding to the squad, the last few days have been very busy.

Jonathan came over on Monday to discuss terms and signed today. The deal will only cost us €20k and, to put that into perspective, it’s only a third of the weekly wage we’d be paying Steve Marlet if he were still at the club. It means that we can’t really go wrong with this one. It’s put me in such a good mood that I may even give him a chance against Cannes in tomorrow’s friendly match.

Then yesterday I targeted 28 year old Belarusian centre back Alexandr Khrapkovskiy as a possible signing. I’m particularly interested in him because the majority of our centre halfs are right footed, but he is equally comfortable on both feet. He currently plies his trade for Sokol Saratov in the Russian First Division. We made a bid of around €170k for him which we thought was fair. Sokol Saratov agreed and he came over this morning to discuss terms.

Finally, I’ve spent much of the rest of today with the chairman speaking to Alejandro Dominguez of River Plate. Dominguez is a striker with explosive pace and a powerful shot, who is coming towards the end of his contract. At just 22, I think he’s an exciting prospect for the future and if we can pick him up for free I’ll be very pleased. Well, actually, I say free, but his wage demands are fairly high so that compensates for the lack of a transfer fee.

KPatterson

Thursday 17th July 2003

Cannes v Marseille
Stade Pierre de Coubertin
Friendly

Khrapkovskiy completed his move from Sokol Saratov this morning, so he took his place in the starting line-up alongside fellow new boy Jonathan and a host of other fringe players. The main reason for my decision to change the starting eleven for this game was because it was the last of our friendlies against the lower division French sides. After this one the more difficult games begin.

Even though I made so many changes to the line-up, I’m pleased with the way we performed today, and a few players are starting to show that they want to be in the team come the start of the season.

Jonathan and Dagoberto looked good up front and they linked twice to get a goal and an assist each to send us in 2-0 up at the break. Other than those two, Vachousek was the stand-out player wide on the left. He came inside a lot and played some nice through balls, so I now know that he is a good alternative to Skacel’s crosses on that side.

Our third goal came late in the second half from Pascal Johansen before Vedran Runje gave Cannes a consolation goal with a farcical own goal. All in all though, a good performance and signs are encouraging, but the really testing games start on Monday when River Plate visit Stade Velodrome.

Cannes 1 - 3 Marseille
Marseille: Filimonov (Runje 67), Laurenti (Perez 67), Torres Mestre (Beye 67), Borbiconi (Mexes 67), Khrapkovskiy (Meite 67), Edson Araujo (Mido 67), Vachousek (Arteta 67), N’Diaye (Johansen 67), Kallstrom (Edson Araujo 67), Jonathan (Merlin 67), Dagoberto (Sytchev 67).
Cannes scorers: Runje OG
Marseille scorers: Jonathan, Dagoberto, Johansen
MoM: Vachousek

retired_aliciabh2000

Just read the story, its a great start and has me hooked already. KUTGW :thup:

KPatterson

Thanks, GoT

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Saturday 19th July 2003

We were dealt a bit of a blow today when Alejandro Dominguez announced that he’d be signing a new deal with River rather than moving over here. I’m not too happy with that really, but there’s nothing I can do about it. We’ll see exactly what we’re missing out on on Monday when his team comes for a friendly match. He’d better not play well, or then I’ll really be gutted.

All of the players in the squad have had some on-field action by now and I now feel as though I know the players a lot better now. Watching them in training is one thing, but there’s no substitute for a match situation. Likewise though, a friendly match is no substitute for a competitive games; that’s why I’m looking forward to the Vodaphone Cup that starts on Friday. First of all though, we’ll see how we do against River.

KPatterson

Monday 21st July 2003

Marseille v River
Stade Velodrome
Friendly

We were pretty poor today, but thankfully so was Alejandro Dominguez so my woes haven’t been multiplied.

A decent crowd of over 22000 came today to see a Marseille team with a starting line-up which contained six players signed by me. They must have left wondering why I’d bothered. We created virtually nothing; no chances, nadda.

To be fair to the players, we didn’t give anything away at the back either, but we’ll definitely have to improve going forward if we are to achieve our ambition of winning the title this season. I think we have the players to do it, but so far they haven’t performed.

Marseille 0 – 0 River
Marseille: Runje (Filimonov 72), Beye (Perez 72), Torres Mestre (Borbiconi 72), Mexes (Meite 72), Khrapkovskiy (Laurenti 72), Edson Araujo (Ghioane 72), Vachousek (Skacel 72), Arteta (Johansen 72), Kallstrom (N’Diaye 72), Mido (Dagoberto 49), Drogba (Sytchev 72).
MoM: Vedran Runje

KPatterson

Thursday 24th July 2003

We’ve been working the players hard on attacking play in training this week. Their general fitness is picking up now, so after Monday’s lacklustre display I felt it was time to do a bit more technical work in training rather just the physical stuff we had been doing.

The main thing that I want us to improve upon is getting more support up to the strikers, who looked a bit isolated against River. It’s important that the midfielders chip in with their fair share of goals this season, but that won’t happen unless they are willing to get forward. Obviously we don’t want them all charging forward at once, but hopefully they now know that we occasionally want one of them to go beyond the strikers.

I know I said last week that we weren’t going to sign any more players and then Khrapkovskiy joined us, but I can now say for sure that no one will be coming in before the end of the transfer window at the end of next month. The only thing that would force my hand would be a spate of injuries – we’ve been lucky with them so far, hopefully it’ll stay that way.

KPatterson

Friday 25th July 2003

Marseille v Ajax
Stade Velodrome
Vodaphone Cup Semi Final

Trust me to say we’ve been lucky to avoid injuries and then one strikes the very next day. Thankfully it’s not too serious. Mido overstretched in the warm up for today’s match so he’ll miss a few days training until he recovers. However, that means he’ll also miss both our games in the Vodaphone Cup.

Earlier in the day Roma had beaten Boca Juniors by a goal to nil meaning the winner of our game would face the Italians in the final. I was at the earlier game and Boca were unlucky to lose after dominating most of the match.

Other than the one enforced change that I made because of Mido’s injury, we used the same starting line-up as against River four days ago with Dagoberto the man coming into the team.

We started brightly as the midfield players responded well to the training this week with Kallstrom getting forward and linking the midfield and attack well. In fact, it took us just 8 minutes to take the lead when Drogba flicked on a Torres Mestre pass to Dagoberto who delightfully lobbed the onrushing Ajax goalkeeper from 35 yards.

We dominated the next hour or so and Drogba, Dagoberto and Kallstrom all had chances to wrap up the win. However, both teams then started to make a few changes which upset our rhythm and we allowed Ajax to get on top.

Just when it looked like the victory was ours after holding on well, Ajax’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic volleyed home to equalise with the very last kick off the ball.

That seemed to knock the stuffing out of us and it wasn’t much of a surprise when Ajax triumphed 4-3 on penalties. Beye and Ghioane both missed their spot kicks for us.

I’m not too unhappy about the result though - we played well; probably as well as we have done so far. Ajax are a strong side, so a draw with them over 90 minutes is no disgrace. They have a lot of good players, their right back Hatim Trabelsi was particularly impressive.

We did get some more bad news after the game when it was revealed that Dmitry Sytchev will miss up to a month with a calf strain. I obviously spoke too soon about the injuries.

Marseille 1 – 1p Ajax
Marseille: Runje, Beye, Torres Mestre, Mexes, Khrapkovskiy (Borbiconi 77), Edson Araujo (Ghioane 63), Vachousek (Skacel 77), Arteta (Johansen 77), Kallstrom (N’Diaye 63), Drogba (Sytchev 63), Dagoberto (Cicut 77).
Marseille scorer: Dagoberto
Ajax scorer: Ibrahimovic
MoM: Dagoberto

KPatterson

Saturday 26th July 2003

Marseille v Boca
Stade Velodrome
Vodaphone Cup Third Place Playoff

One problem with losing yesterday’s game is that it gave us less than 18 hours to recover for today’s match against Boca. Some of the players were still going to be tired so I took the opportunity to start with the fringe players again, including two young strikers Nicolas Cicut and Karim Dahou. There were also places on the bench for two of our most promising under 18 players: 16 year old striker Samir Ben Said Nasri and Hamed Yahiaoui, an attacking fullback of the same age.

Boca have some real pace upfront so I knew this game would be a real test for our defence. Carlos Tevez in particular caused the back four all sorts of problems. He became much quieter when Philippe Mexes came on, so that just shows what a good signing the defender could be.

All in all, it was a fairly even game and I couldn’t have complained if it was a draw, but in the end a first half goal from Nicolas Cicut was enough to give us the win. Cicut played quite well overall so I may give him a chance in the first team squad until Sytchev returns from injury.

Now I know that I definitely spoke too soon about our lack of injuries – Rudolf Skacel fell awkwardly in the first half and broke his wrist which gives us another player we’ll be without for a month or so.

Marseille 1 – 0 Boca
Marseille: Filimonov (Runje 75), Perez (Beye 75), Borbiconi (Torres Mestre 75), Laurenti (Mexes 75), Meite (Khrapovskiy 75), Johansen (Yahiaoui 51), Skacel (Edson Araujo 12), N’Diaye (Kallstrom 75), Ghioane (Arteta 51), Cicut (Nasri 51), Dahou (Dagoberto 75).
Marseille scorer: Cicut
MoM: Cicut

KPatterson

Monday 28th July 2003

Roma beat Ajax 4-1 in a very enjoyable match to lift the Vodaphone Cup. I wish we’d been playing them, not just because it was the final, but mainly because I wanted to test our team against their style of play. It would have given me a chance to see how we’ll cope in Europe this season.

Our pre-season friendly matches have given me the chance to have a good look at the players I’ll have at my disposal over the coming season. I’m very happy with the squad that we have here; the players have talent, but more importantly, they’ve shown me that they have the right attitude and, above all, the desire to win. If you have that, you’re halfway there. The dressing room spirit isn’t quite there yet because we have a lot of new players, but it will come. When the players trust each other and believe in each other, that is when success arrives. It won’t come overnight, but I’ve seen signs of a bond developing.

With regards to this season, I think we have the players to win the league. It will be tough, no doubt about it, but we have to be positive. I know that I’m under pressure for the team to win the championship, but I’m going to try hard not to transfer that pressure onto the players. Footballers almost always perform better when the pressure is off so that they can relax and do what they do best.

KPatterson

Friday 1st August 2003

I made the short journey along the road yesterday to Monte Carlo to watch the draw for the Third Qualifying Round of the Champions League. We’ve been paired with either Kaunas of Lithuania or Leotar of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Leotar are leading 4-2 after the first leg of their tie and I’ll travel to Bosnia to see the second leg next Wednesday. I know very little about either club, but we should be able to learn a bit before we face them.

Following the draw, I had to register 25 players to be eligible to play in the Champions League this season. They are:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>

Goalkeepers
Filimonov, A
Runje, V

Defenders
Beye, H
Borbiconi, S
Christanval, P
Dos Santos, M
Khrapkovskiy, A
Laurenti, F
Mexes, P
Meite, A
Perez, S
Torres Mestre, V

Midfielders
Arteta, M
Ghioane, T
Johansen, P
Kallstrom, K
N’Diaye, S
Skacel, R
Vachousek, S
Edson Araujo

Attackers
Cicut, N
Dagoberto
Drogba
Mido
Sytchev, D

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

With just a couple of days to go before we face Rennes at Stade Velodrome in the first game of the season, the excitement is starting to kick in. The place is buzzing when I come in every morning – even the canteen staff get excited by the prospect of the new season!