goalkeeper steve mandanda says olympique de marseille "have our backs against the wall" and stresses there is no room for error when fellow group f strugglers mšk Žilina visit.
there is no more room for error warned olympique de marseille goalkeeper steve mandanda ahead of mšk Žilina's visit to the french champions on tuesday.
defeats by fc spartak moskva and chelsea fc have left both marseille and their slovakian opponents without a uefa champions league group f point and mandanda's side need to start winning if they are to progress past this stage for the first time since their 1992/93 triumph. mandanda, a regular in om's three straight third-place group finishes since his 2007 arrival from le havre ac, does not want to make it fourth time unlucky.
"we don't know much about Žilina, but we are playing a champions league game, we know it is going to be tough," mandanda said. "we have our backs against the wall. there is no room for mistakes. if we want to retain a chance of qualifying, we will need to win tomorrow and in slovakia. then, we will try and produce an upset in moscow against spartak."
mandanda underlined that the slovakian champions were an unknown quantity. "we have a video session tomorrow, but what will happen on the pitch will be decisive," the french international said. "unlike against spartak and chelsea, we will need to be ready right from the start of the game." in particular, that meant making the most of their opportunities. "against spartak, we had lots of chances but we could not convert them," mandanda said. "i hope we can correct that tomorrow."
it also means improving on their performance in the 1-0 weekend win over as nancy-lorraine, which earned criticism from coach didier deschamps. "we were quite bad on saturday and i hope we cannot do worse," mandanda said. "we will have to raise our technical level and maintain our spirit."
as for Žilina captain róbert jež, he knows that marseille will be see this game as the perfect chance to get off the mark. "i hope that we can win here, but even a draw would be good for us," the midfielder said. "marseille are favourites, it is to be expected that they are looking for six points against us. we had a difficult start against chelsea and spartak, and we know that it will not be easy here in marseille. we knew that it would be like that when we saw the draw, but we will try and get as many points as possible."
1. chelsea fc...3...3...0...0...8...1...7...9 2. fc spartak moskva...3...2...0...1...4...2...2...6 3. olympique de marseille...3...1...0...2...1...3...-2...3 4. mšk Žilina...3...0...0...3...1...8...-7...0
the french champions got off the mark at the third attempt in group f thanks to souleymane diawara's second-half winner.
souleymane diawara's second-half header ignited olympique de marseille's qualification chances in group f as the french champions edged past mšk Žilina to register their first points.
with both sides looking to recover from defeats by chelsea fc and fc spartak moskva this was never likely to be a classic, but it was didier deschamps' men who got the result they needed to kick-start their campaign. the 1993 european champions deserved the victory after creating a host of chances and taking a 48th-minute lead, although poor finishing led to a nervy finish with steve mandanda pulling off two fine saves. the triumph takes om to within three points of second-placed spartak ahead of the return fixture in slovakia on 3 november.
still looking for their first goal in this season's competition, om adopted a shoot-on-sight policy. mathieu valbuena was off target with a pair of long-range efforts and andré-pierre gignac twice forced saves from martin dúbravka inside the first 20 minutes, the second a fine stop from the striker's curling attempt.
it had been a purposeful start from the hosts and they almost got their reward on 25 minutes, andré ayew volleying fractionally wide after some superb wing play from valbuena. the france playmaker was a livewire, proving almost impossible to dispossess, yet for all their eye-catching approach play the ligue 1 outfit struggled to find a final touch. indeed, a frustrating opening period was summed up in the dying seconds when brandão scooped over from point-blank range after gignac had nodded cleverly back across goal.
marseille's relentless pressure eventually told shortly after the restart. dúbravka could only divert diawara's downward header in off the bar after the senegalese defender had risen gracefully to meet lucho's delivery. the relief in the stadium was palpable, although the visitors reacted positively and came close to silencing the home fans on two occasions either side of the hour.
mandanda rescued om both times, first deflecting tomáš majtán's lob wide as the striker burst onto momodou ceesay's flick, then pulling off a wonderful reflex save from róbert jež's thunderous left-footed volley. scoring goals has been a problem for pavel hapal's charges in europe and they were again left ruing a lack of ruthlessness. tomáš oravec, scorer of their solitary goal against chelsea, had a final chance in added time but the substitute shot over from 20 metres as the slovakian titleholders missed an opportunity to prise their first point.
yardımcı hakemler: györgy ring (hun), zsolt attila szpisjak (hun)
4. hakem: roland veizer (hun)
çizgi hakemleri: sandor szabo (hun), tamás bognar (hun)
marsilya: steve mandanda (gk) (c), césar azpilicueta, taye taiwo, lucho gonzález (dk. 75 fabrice abriel), brandão (dk. 66 loïc rémy), andré-pierre gignac (dk. 83 édouard cissé), stéphane mbia, gabriel heinze, andré ayew, souleymane diawara, mathieu valbuena
yedekler: elinton andrade (gk), benoît cheyrou, charles kaboré, jordan ayew
teknik direktör: didier deschamps (fra)
Žilina: martin dúbravka (gk), stanislav angelovič, Ľubomír guldan, vladimír leitner, tomáš majtán (dk. 68 tomáš oravec), róbert jež (c), jozef piaček, momodou ceesay, ondřej šourek, štefan zošák (dk. 79 admir vladavić), roman gergel (dk. 63 emil rilke)
yedekler: martin krnáč (gk), patrik mráz, martin vyskočil, sergio vittor
