Ligue 1 Review | Hope springs eternal for winless Toulouse | OneFootball

How would you expect a club to react after going three games without a win? Would you imagine that there was some cause for concern, anger even, perhaps a minor crisis in the making? What about hopeful? Or encouraged? For Toulouse FC, under summer appointment Jens Berthel Askou, victory has been elusive, with two losses and one draw to start the season. Results that leave the club in the relegation zone.

Regardless, the feeling around the club remains exceptionally positive. As Askou explained after the Thursday night defeat to Lille OSC (1-0), “We’re very proud of what the team produced. We can’t yet talk about pride among the players who are frustrated and disappointed, but overall the message sent is very positive. I’m even more optimistic.” We’ve seen managers come out with a similar message before from embattled positions, but Askou’s comments didn’t have that whiff of siege mentality to them. 

There’s no need to try and pull the wool over our eyes when the truth is that Toulouse have looked good despite the results going against them. The message should be optimistic; you’d expect that if they keep performing as they have done, then results will surely soon follow. 

Toulouse dominate

The defeat to Lille felt exceptionally harsh on Les Pitchouns. Across the ninety minutes, they had been the better team in and out of possession. Toulouse generated 3.41 expected goals to Lille’s 1.06. They made 66 ball recoveries to Lille’s 48. But the stat which would matter at the end of the game was that Lille’s goalkeeper Berke Özer had made nine saves. 

The Turkish international was in sensational form as he put in a man-of-the-match performance to deny Toulouse’s forwards chance after chance. While between the sticks for Toulouse, Guillaume Restes was forced off with an injury on his 100th Ligue 1 appearance, and his understudy Mathys Niflore looked nervy on his debut as he spilt the ball from a block for Ayase Ueda to head home the only goal of the game. 

It was a match that we could summarise as Lille took their chance, while Toulouse let plenty go. Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised by that summary; the club have lacked an out-and-out finisher since they sold Thijs Dallinga two years ago to Bologna. Since then, they have, in consecutive summers, sold their top scorer for the season, with Yann Gboho following Zakaria Aboukhlal out the door. 

Who’s going to score?

Despite the positivity and optimism the performances have so far generated, there is a question that hangs over Toulouse: who’s going to score the goals? It’s felt as if Askou has been relying fairly heavily on Santiago Hidalgo and Jacen Russell-Rowe to step up and provide that answer. However, neither have looked nearly as clinical as needed. Out of the two, only Russell-Rowe has found the net. Which perhaps hints at a wider issue with the squad at his disposal. 

After RC Strasbourg Alsace, Toulouse have the youngest average age in the league according to Transfermarkt. The average age of the players used so far this season is 22.6. This is far from an accident. Instead, it’s a core component of the club’s design. It’s what led to Toulouse making a reported €68m in sales to the Premier League from three players in the summer transfer window (Dayann Methalie, Emersonn, and Gboho). 

However, what is good for the accounts is not always good on the pitch. And while hope springs eternal, it’s left the team vulnerable to a certain instability. As we’ve also seen with Strasbourg over the past few seasons, a lack of experience in key areas around the squad can lead to fluctuating results, poor game management, and a lack of a killer instinct. 

This week’s Ligue 1 subplots

GFFN | Nick Hartland