Before losing their first match of 2012, at Lyon in the Coupe de France on Wednesday, Francis Gillot and Les Girondins had every reason to be content with their work since the winter break, which has seen them climb to ninth place.

High standards

But Gillot is a hard man to please. Even if he's delighted at how ex-Lille midfielder Ludovic Obraniak has settled in instantly, scoring a superb free kick against Toulouse last week, and even if Jussie scored the second-fastest goal of the season - after 29 seconds - Gillot hasn't forgotten the laborious performances of the previous weeks.

"I think we could do better," said the no-nonsense former Sochaux boss. "Since the winter break we've been getting by and pulling results out of the hat. It's worth remembering, though, that at the start of the season we were playing lovely football without picking up the points.

"Lately we've taken points off Valenciennes and Evian while playing very average football. We're going through a bad spell in terms of our style but it's been good for us in terms of points because we've been unbeaten in recent games."

Big guns looming

However, with consecutive league matches against Lille, Lyon, and Montpellier looming, Gillot knows things are going to get tougher.

"We've got a difficult month of February coming up but if we manage to keep taking points off the top teams during this time, then maybe we'll be happy come the end of the season," he said ahead of Sunday's Week 23 clash away to champions Lille.

"The problem is that in the first half of the season we didn't manage to win against the top eight in the league. The challenge, and the objective now, is to keep up with these sides. Catching the top six will be very hard. There are some top sides there with Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Montpellier, PSG."

Tough-minded Gillot - who took Sochaux to a wholly unexpected fifth-placed finish last season - isn't complaining about the work ahead, even though he would like to see the strength in depth of his squad keep growing.

'Lacking two or three exceptional players'

"There's a lot still to be done from our point of view. We're more effective in our play but we're still lacking those two or three exceptional players that can make the difference at any given moment," Gillot explained of his squad that has seen the likes of Yoann Gourcuff, Marouane Chamakh, Wendel and Fernando leave in recent seasons. "Look at all the sides in Europe. If they don't have their best players then they're always in trouble. That's what we've been lacking, but not because of injury.

"The club made an effort in signing two players in the winter transfer window: Mariano and Ludovic Obraniak. That's not bad, but it's not enough to hope to challenge the five leading clubs. We'll need to carry on along those lines in June and in transfer windows after that."

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