André Villas-Boas admitted that Olympique de Marseille’s home loss to Nîmes Olympique on Saturday was a hammer blow to their hopes of a top-three finish this season.
“First of all we must apologise to the supporters. It is a bad defeat and we are dropping too many points at the moment,” said Villas-Boas after OM went down 2-1 to their struggling visitors at the Orange Vélodrome.
Florian Thauvin squandered a first-half penalty and a Niclas Eliasson brace in the second half left Marseille with too much to do to take anything from the game, even if Dario Benedetto did pull one back late on for the hosts.
Marseille are sixth, 10 points adrift of leaders Paris Saint-Germain and seven behind LOSC, who are third and play on Sunday. OM will still have two games in hand on the sides above them after the weekend, but they have now won just one of their last six league games.
Villas-Boas, whose side competed well against PSG in the Trophée des Champions in midweek only to lose 2-1, added: “We risk losing touch with the teams at the top, who are all more consistent. We were very bad and we paid an expensive price for it. We need to do much better. We can’t go from playing well against Paris to a miserable match like that.”
Nîmes: 'The start of a little adventure'
“There are players who are coming to the end of their contracts, players who are coming in and others who are leaving. Maybe we are paying the price for that. It is worrying.”
In stark contrast, Nîmes coach Jérôme Arpinon was ecstatic after his team claimed a first win in nine outings and moved off the bottom of the table.
“It is the end of a negative run and I think it is also the start of a little adventure. Not many teams will come here and win so this is great for our confidence,” said Arpinon.
“We will remain humble but this can be a trigger for us. We have carried on working hard with a smile on our faces, with the desire and determination to get out of this, with experienced players coming back, and this is the result.”
