Never judge any team on the first day of their season. Stade Rennais, to widespread surprise, are the latest to prove that cliché true. When they were beaten 2-1 at Bastia in their season opener, you’d have given coach Philippe Montanier little chance of hanging onto his job until Christmas, let alone anything to the prospects of the westerners lifting themselves out of the mediocrity in which they’ve become mired in recent seasons.
So it was joy unconfined, then, when Saturday night’s 3-1 win over Toulouse - Rennes’ third in a row - gave Montanier’s men their best start to a league campaign since the 1972/73 season, and their best-ever in the era of three points for a win. While a cautious Montanier, whose time at Rennes so far has hardly been an unequivocal success, told Luis Fernandez on beIN Sports on Sunday that it was “much too soon” to talk about his team aiming to at least make the teams placed between third and sixth sweat, there is at last a feeling that things could be moving in the right direction.
One thing that Montanier was frank about was his, and his team’s, need to improve on a miserable campaign last time around. In fact, he said, Rennes needed to rip up the rulebook and start all over. “We had the 17th-best attack in the division,” the coach told Fernandez, underlining the fact that only Nantes (29) plus the relegated duo of Metz (31) and Lens (32) scored fewer goals than his side’s paltry total of 35 in 38 matches. Even though the Brittany club finished ninth, it was poor fare for supporters at the Stade de la Route de Lorient, which has been renamed Roazhon Park this season. “We had to find another way to animate the attacking side of our game.”
The first, and most obvious, manifestation change was in the team’s shape. Out went last season’s stodgy 4-1-4-1 and in came a more fluid plan, which Montanier describes as 5-4-1, a nod, perhaps, to his default setting of safety first, but which is actually interpreted more as a 3-4-3 in practice. Either way, the extra width afforded to Rennes is reaping dividends.
Last week, the beneficiary was Medhi Zeffane. Having just arrived from Lyon, the right-back returned to his former club with Rennes days later. The speed of the turnaround was such that he laughed that he left the capital of the Gauls “like a robber”, with no time to arrange a proper house move and just a couple of cardboard boxes wedged onto the backseat of his sports car. For his swift return, Zeffane was used in a surprise role at Stade Gerland, pushed up in an attacking role on the left-hand side. From this unexpected post, he cut inside to smash a right-footed winner past his former teammate Anthony Lopes and give his side a victory that raised eyebrows aplenty.
Against Toulouse, the wide men were coming good for Montanier again and again. Rennes had 13 efforts at goal with just 51% of possession, emphasising their fluency in the new system. Zeffane was returned to a more familiar right (wing)-back role, but it was the return of Paul-Georges Ntep that really won the day.
The France winger, having come on for Kamil Grosicki with just 27 minutes left, was immediately decisive, heading on smartly for Giovanni Sio to win a penalty, which Sylvain Armand put away at the second attempt after Mauro Goicoechea saved his spot-kick, before laying on a delicious, unmissable low cross for Sio to wrap up the game. That Ntep gained a WhoScored rating of 7.24 after taking just 18 touches showed exactly how important every contribution he made was. He has been out with injury since May, and how Rennes have missed him in the interim.
Ntep’s efforts remind us that whatever the system, nothing is more important than key players stepping up at the right time. It’s Armand’s competence in marshalling the back three that allows it to work - having played hundreds of games at left-back before switching to centre-back, he is ideally placed to roll it out. Even at 35, he is one of the team’s cornerstones and was the squad’s standout performer last season with an average rating of 7.17.
Equally, the team’s altered shape still requires a big contribution from a lone centre-forward, and Sio is providing exactly what the recently-sold Ola Toivonen was unable to for most of last season. Having already adapted to Ligue 1 in a loan spell with Bastia last season, Sio masters the basics well, landing 74% of his passes and winning an average of 2 aerial duels per game. Most importantly, he is playing with confidence, scoring 2 in his first 3 starts with Rennes after netting 5 in 9 with Bastia. He is also averaging 2.3 efforts on goal per game, while Toivonen was managing just 1.8. The trick now is to maintain that, with Toivonen scoring 7 in 13 starts after arriving the club in early 2014, but only another 7 in 28 starts last campaign as he cut a miserable figure.
What should help is the next part of Montanier’s plan. Having primed his team to attack from wide, he plans to get them to open up central areas of the pitch next, with deals to bring in a pair of dribblers in Porto’s Juan Fernando Quintero and young Jeremie Boga of Chelsea completed on deadline day. Rennes go into the international break sitting pretty, but their coach knows the hardest work it yet to come.
Can Rennes maintain their good start to the season and secure a European place this term? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below
