Player Focus: Fabulous Féret Rolls Back the Years as Caen Start Climbing

It wasn’t exactly a vintage weekend in Ligue 1. The final count of 10 goals across the games represented the lowest collective total since the 32nd round of the 2006/07 season.

As snow fell, frost bit and all and sundry complained about the state of the pitches, it wasn’t all gloom, though. As the race at the top has polarised, with the top three of Lyon, Marseille and Paris Saint-Germain getting closer together and separating themselves from the rest, the battle at the bottom is even tighter. There are just 4 points of difference between last-placed Metz and Toulouse, who are 14th after Saturday’s win over Reims.

So it’s clear that there is an opportunity for any club that puts a few wins together to propel themselves sharply upwards. Nobody is sunk any more than they are saved. Caen, who were bottom at Christmas, have shown exactly that by winning three in a row. The latest of those victories, moving them up to 15th, was an especially eye-catching one, over high-flying Saint Etienne at the Stade Michel d’Ornano on Sunday afternoon.

Nerves may have been apparent once or twice – not least in loan debutant Emiliano Sala’s extraordinary miss when he had the chance to wrap up the game for the Normandy club late on – but there was also the sense that Caen have the extra dash of quality to give them an advantage over their rivals. Nobody embodies this more than Julien Féret.

Now 32, there are few greater pleasures in Ligue 1 than watching an on-form Féret. After a quiet opening to the season he has exploded into life in recent weeks, and it was he who struck the only goal of the game against Les Verts, ending a surging slalom with a fine finish past Stéphane Ruffier.

While the goal may have been the decisive moment, this was really the tip of the iceberg in terms of Féret’s overall contribution. He was the star man, with a rating of 8.68, and contributed well in a defensive sense by making 3 tackles and another 3 interceptions too.

Quite simply, when Féret plays well, so do Caen. He has enjoyed an explosive start to 2015, being directly complicit in 6 of Caen’s 9 goals in those last three games (3 goals and 3 assists). That he managed to do so in such a big game this week, after producing such a definitive performance at his old club Rennes last week, spoke volumes for his professionalism, his consistency and his current rich vein of form.

Rennes have always been Féret’s club, and he looked a bit sheepish despite his dazzling performance at Stade de la Route de Lorient last week. He rated 9.5 after scoring one and creating the other three goals in Caen’s emphatic 4-1 win there. “It’s mixed feelings,” Féret said after the match, “because Rennes is the club that I support and that I’ve always loved.”

With that in mind, it’s perhaps not so surprising that it’s taken Féret a while to find his imperious best after being shown the door by coach Philippe Montanier last summer. It’s the second time that Rennes have broken his heart. After coming through the club’s highly respected youth system, they declined to offer Féret his first professional contract in 2003, so he went to join Cherbourg, then in the third tier, to kickstart his career.

Féret was 26 before finally making his Ligue 1 bow with Nancy, but he was worth the wait. In a competition that is perhaps only second to the Premier League in terms of physical endurance, he has been a beacon of elegance and calm, and few can pick passes as well as him. Providing delivery from set-pieces as well, Féret is a versatile threat.

He was certainly so during the first two of his three seasons at Rennes. One would never have expected him to publically savage Montanier for letting him go, partly because he is a class act but also because Féret will acknowledge that he fell well short of his best in his final campaign at the Route de Lorient. In an injury-interrupted season, he made just 11 starts in Ligue 1, in which he failed to provide a single goal or assist.

It was a far cry from his pomp. Féret scored 11 and supplied 6 assists in 2012/13, having scored 8 and laid on 11 the season before. The standards he set back then are such that he was quite right to say after the return to Rennes that his current upswing in fortune is “not a resurrection”. He has a way to go, averaging 1.7 key passes this season, which is a far cry from the 2.8 he posted in 2011/12 or the 2.1 in 2012/13 which reprised his rate of delivery in 2010/11, his final season at Nancy.

Nevertheless, the signs of life are significant, and coach Patrice Garande has set Féret in the best conditions possible to thrive, with an experienced anchor behind him in Nicolas Seube and willing runners to either side in Bengali-Fodé Koita, Herve Bazile and young Lenny Nangis.

“He allows us to become a completely different team,” said Seube of Féret after the win at Rennes, and the same was again true this weekend. Long may it continue. Ligue 1 may have a reputation for bouts of ugliness, but when Féret is at his best, there’s always something worth watching.

How highly do you rate Féret’s latest performances? Let us know in the comments below