Kovac will hope his side, who finished third in the 2020/21 campaign, can pick up their first Ligue 1 Uber Eats win of the new season when they play host to Lens late on Saturday afternoon after his team picked up just one point from their 180 minutes of top-flight football so far.

Following their opening-day draw with Nantes and their Round 2 defeat to Lorient, the principality club also lost the first leg of their UEFA Champions League play-off with Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday, putting their chances of participating in the competition's group stage in serious jeopardy.

WATCH: Terem Moffi and Lorient sink Monaco

Kovac is adamant, however, his team have not played as badly as their results would suggest.

"We had some tough moments last season too, and this is a new situation. We're playing more competitions and our results aren't what we expected, but they also don't correspond with what we deserved," Kovac explained. "We have dominated our games and at the end we haven't got the points we should have had. Right now, it's not positive, but I'm happy with our performances. We're creating chances, it's only a question of time."

Lens, however, promise to make it another testing 90 minutes for Monaco. The northerners have drawn both their league matches to date, and have kept the principality club out in both of their last two top-flight encounters.

Monaco captain Wissam ben Yedder is without a goal in his last five competitive appearances — a career-first for the France international — while Kovac's men have found the net just once in domestic action to date.

Kovac will have to decide whether to play his first-choice XI with Wednesday's play-off second leg looming or save his key players for the midweek trip to Ukraine and risk — as at Lorient — seeing a tweaked side suffer a damaging defeat.

"Whatever my choice is, we have a good team. Last season, we had a good squad and it's better this season. But Lens are a very good team, with a very good set-up and very good coach. It'll be difficult again, but I say it every day: Ligue 1 is difficult," said the former Eintracht Frankfurt and Bayern Munich boss.

"Every game is important, because wins build up our confidence and improve our mood. I don't want to make our situation a bigger problem than it is. No one is champion after two or three games, and no one is relegated either. It's just a period in the season.

"I don't want to give the current situation too much importance. Last season, we also had difficult times and we were able to turn the situation around."

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