Roberto De Zerbi says Marseille are ‘progressing’ against defensive teams | OneFootball

The opening periods of play between Olympique de Marseille and Le Havre mirrored a lot of fixtures played between OM and a team that comes and plays a low-block at the Vélodrome. HAC begun the game bravely trying to compact the midfield areas, yet De Zerbi’s side managed to find the solutions. Valentin Rongier opened the scoring for the hosts with a driven effort, as Les Olympiens went on to open the floodgates against a Le Havre side which weren’t at all prepared for the waves of attacks coming from the hosts. Roberto De Zerbi was happy with his side’s effort against HAC, who had set up compactly to disrupt the hosts powerful passing patterns through midfield. Speaking at the post-match press conference attended by Get French Football News, the Italian tactician said he feels his side is improving against teams that set up with a low block. “We’re progressing with the teams that are playing in a low block. These are difficult matches where you are playing vertically, where you need a lot of patience and quality,” De Zerbi told the press present post-match at the Stade Vélodrome.“What I appreciated was the understanding of the game, we played around the ball and also had some variety with some shots from range. I liked the reaction to losing the ball, we had the energy to win the ball back through the likes of Rabiot and Rongier. The pace of the match isn’t always set by players that have the ball, but also when we win it back with the pace at which we did so.”

De Zerbi’s side dismantled Le Havre last night at the Vélodrome 5-1 in their return to action following the international break. With the three points, OM closed the gap to Paris Saint-Germain at the top of the table to seven points, whilst going two points ahead of AS Monaco in the table.GFFN | George Boxall, from Marseille