RC Lens lost key players during the close season, but a strong start to this season suggests Les Sang et Or can once again challenge towards the top of the Ligue 1 Uber Eats table. Ligue1.com looks at the reasons why.
Lens have one of the biggest and most vibrant fanbases in the whole of France but you could have forgiven their supporters for being a little pessimistic ahead of this campaign. They finished seventh last season for the second year running, and missed out on European qualification by only four points. But some of their most important players then departed.
Arnaud Kalimuendo, who was their top scorer with 13 goals, returned to Paris Saint-Germain at the end of his second season on loan, and has since been sold to Stade Rennais FC. Outstanding young Malian midfielder Cheick Doucouré was lured away to the Premier League by Crystal Palace for a fee that could reportedly reach €27.6 million. Right wing-back Jonathan Clauss, a source of so much energy and so many goals from the flank and who broke into the France squad last season, went to Olympique de Marseille in a deal worth €11 million.
But those losses have not had a negative impact. First of all because Lens were ready and moved quickly to reinforce their squad in time for the start of pre-season. Kalimuendo has been replaced by Loïs Openda, a Belgian international forward recruited from Club Brugge in a big-money deal after ending last season as the second-top scorer in the Dutch Eredivisie with 18 goals on loan at Vitesse Arnhem – only Sébastien Haller scored more.
Doucouré’s departure has been made up for by the arrival for €5 million of Ghanaian midfielder Salis Abdul Samed, who excelled in his debut Ligue 1 season at Clermont Foot 63. The decision to bring back Brice Samba to France looks an inspired one too – he was a regular in the Nottingham Forest team that won promotion to the Premier League via the play-offs last season but opted to return to Ligue 1, where the ex-Marseille goalkeeper last played for SM Caen in 2018-19.
‘A real advantage’
“We managed to move quickly, and with the signings that we really wanted. That was a real advantage I think,” Lens coach Franck Haise said before the campaign began. “We always sign players that we want, but sometimes the one who comes in was not at the top of our list. This summer we only signed the players who were at the very top of our list.”
However, just as important as the new arrivals are the players who have stayed.
The three-man central defence is stable. Meanwhile Przemysław Frankowski, who often played on the left last season, has now been able to switch to his favoured right flank following the sale of Clauss, meaning Colombian Deiver Machado should play more often on the left. The wily Florian Sotoca remains in attack and scored a hat-trick in the 3-2 win over Stade Brestois 29 on the opening weekend of the season, despite having a penalty saved in the same game.
Inspirational Fofana remains
Most crucially of all, inspirational skipper Seko Fofana is still at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis, despite inevitably being linked with a move to a supposedly bigger club. Indeed, PSG were one of those linked with the 27-year-old Paris-born Ivory Coast international, whose market value has exploded since he joined Lens from Udinese for a reported €10 million in 2020.
Those comparative veterans are helping the new recruits settle in, and Openda got his first goal for his new club in last weekend’s eye-catching 4-1 victory away to AS Monaco at the Stade Louis II. Hopes for the Belgian are particularly high.
“We had been watching him for three years,” said Haise, who has seen the retired former midfielder Yannick Cahuzac become his assistant after Alou Diarra departed to take on a coaching post elsewhere. “Loïs is a finisher, good with his head as well as with both feet, but he also has the legs for a transitional style of football because he is dynamic and quick. The fact that he won his first caps for Belgium in June shows how complete a player he is. When you are among the best 22 or 23 players in Belgium - especially as an attacker - that tells you the level he is at.”
‘No limits’
The wins over Brest and Monaco, either side of a 0-0 draw away to AC Ajaccio, have already propelled Lens up towards the top of the table, fuelling hopes that they can improve on their seventh-place finish in each of the last two seasons and perhaps even qualify for Europe for the first time in two decades.
“We are fixing no limits, although we are fully aware of our means and the means of others,” was how Haise responded just prior to the campaign beginning when asked about his aims. “We had a great season last season because we finished seventh and confirmed what we did in the previous campaign. We finished seventh with 62 points, five more than the previous season. And yet it wasn’t enough to qualify for Europe. When you look at the six teams who finished above us, that makes sense. You had five big clubs in the top five and then Strasbourg, who are a similar team to us. But we are setting no limits this time.”
That is the kind of talk those fans will love to hear as they come back to the Stade Bollaert-Delelis in vast numbers again this season. More than 29,000 season tickets had been sold at the last count. The support they provide at home over the course of the campaign could be worth several points to the team, who welcome Rennes to northern France this weekend.
