Unable to materialize its progress in the collective game on the accounting level, with only one victory in the last eight matches, Amiens SC is preparing to take up one of the biggest challenges of the season with Le Havre receptionSaturday on behalf of the 20th day of Ligue 2. If he expects a difficult and disputed game, Philippe Hinschberger has confidence in the ability of his team to be up to the event. Interview.
Philippe, Amiens SC launches its second part of the season by receiving Le Havre, a very good poster…
It’s a big game, it’s a very good team. Apart from their second match, where they lost, this is a team that has played sixteen matches without losing a single one. It is an exceptional course. They will miss half the points of what they have already taken to be able to climb. They are on the royal road. We really have to congratulate them on their first part of the season. It’s rare and it’s beautiful but on Saturday we won’t congratulate them (laughs).
To hope to beat this team, you have to show what qualities?
It’s a team that shows a lot of dominance. It is very confident, it is the best attack and the best defense, it is a complete team, which can do almost everything. She also loves possession. We will therefore need a good team from Amiens, in any case a better one than that of the first leg, especially technically if we want to come out of there with a victory. After every game has its truth. They also win a lot with the minimum score of one to zero. You quickly feel that it is played on not much. It’s up to us to tip the small details in our direction.
They are also accompanied by the success of the leader…
Success also happens because you are more confident. It creates an optimal climate and after you cling to your bone, you don’t want to let go. You make a lot of effort, the same effort that I would have liked us to make in Nîmes. A match that could have knocked us over but we didn’t know how to do the right thing. Le Havre is in any case on a dynamic like this.
You encounter the best defense in the championship (note: 7 goals conceded) while you encounter difficulties in the offensive field…
Yes after they also concede opportunities like everyone else. We are also always able to create 3-4 chances per game. There’s no reason it can’t continue on Saturday. It’s true that we’ve scored few goals in recent weeks, but it’s not by complaining that things will improve. We put things in place with our attackers, but it’s not just them, we also provide passers… For this Saturday match we have to play on our qualities and scrutinize the weak points of our opponent even if he doesn’t there aren’t many. We have to think about making our match.
Our chance/goal ratio is not good, it is insufficient. If we look at the xGs (note: excpected goals), they give us 3 or 4 more.
Overall, over the season, we haven’t scored many goals. We scored three against Niort, three against Bastia, the rest we often scored only one goal. Our chance/goal ratio is not good, it is insufficient. If we look at the xGs (note: excpected goals), they give us 3 or 4 more, in the same way as points. We forgot to convert our chances, no later than in the friendly match at Versailles, where in the second half we wondered how we managed not to score. I’m not fixated on that, my goal is to create chances and if we can convert them, it’s better.
Do you feel that your team has more arguments today to compete with Le Havre?
Yes, i clearly. It may be paradoxical, but today we have a lot more maturity in our game, more technical mastery. The matches we play today have nothing to do with the first ten league matches. Afterwards we have always been capable of dazzling, but now we have more control over this aspect. Saturday, we will play a technically superior team but we will not be on the street. In any case, we watched the videos of the first leg, it was technical error after technical error, it was nonsense.
Will this match be a turning point in the season?
No, we are on the 20th day, there is half the championship left, it’s huge. You can even lose against Le Havre, which can happen, but thanks to two or three consecutive victories, which I’m sure we’ll do, we’ll be able to get back in the peloton. After the objective is not to get picked up on this match. Then we go to Niort where it will be anything but simple. We are going to receive Le Havre and Metz, teams that are in the thick of it, so we will have to be present. Now, if we beat Le Havre on Saturday, we have the opportunity to get closer too. We are four points today (note: second place), we don’t want to stray too far.
In the absence of a turning point, we can still speak of a revealing match for Amiens SC…
Yes. We still have tests like Le Havre and Metz which are both well placed. I don’t want to underestimate Niort. Today Le Havre and Metz are the best.
We will therefore know what Amiens SC has in store for this second part of the season after this match…
Oui.
Interview by Romain PECHON with Clément ROSSI
