Toulouse Football Club will travel to Lorient this Saturday, September 12, without two of their key players from the start of the season, goalkeeper Guillaume Restes and captain Rasmus Nicolaisen, both sidelined by injury. Coach Jens Berthel Askou remains frustrated that his side has yet to win a match this season despite dominating some of their opponents, but insists he stays ambitious and positive.
Toulouse will be without several major players for the fourth round of Ligue 1 at Lorient on Saturday evening. Aron Donnum, who recently lost his mother, will not travel, and Abu Francis, who has been injured since the start of the season, will also miss out. Neither has played since the campaign began.
On top of that, Toulouse will be without Restes, who has not sufficiently recovered from a thigh injury and will be replaced by Mathys Niflore, and Nicolaisen, who withdrew at the last minute because of discomfort in a calf.
Options to replace the Danish captain
To replace their Danish captain, Askou has two options: David Odogu, on loan from AC Milan, who has yet to play for Toulouse, and Seny Koumbassa, who has featured for 12 minutes so far this season, against Brest.
Koumbassa, a 19-year-old defender who came through Toulouse's academy, was given his Ligue 1 debut last season and went on to play nine matches, including four at the end of the campaign as cover for Cresswell and then McKenzie. He scored his first top-flight goal against Lens in April.
Chasing a first win of the season
Without their two injured key players, Toulouse will try to secure their first Ligue 1 win of a season that has so far failed to deliver one, an anomaly given how dominant they have been in their two home matches, against Lyon in the opening round and especially against Lille on Thursday, September 3, in round three.
Two days before the trip to Lorient's Stade du Moustoir, Askou, who has kept up a strongly positive tone, was asked about the frustration he might feel over the team's poor results so far this season, two defeats and a draw.
Askou said he was obviously frustrated, since it was impossible not to be. He said the team wanted to win and to feel the satisfaction of succeeding together, so yes, he was frustrated. But he added that he was also in a position where people would not benefit from his frustration. Instead, he said, they would benefit from his optimism, positivity and encouragement, which he described as his role and one he took very seriously.
The Danish coach said he had felt that frustration, which he called palpable in the stands of the Stadium, during the 0-1 home defeat to Lille, a match in which his team failed to score despite registering 24 shots on goal. He said he had to be the one who turned that frustration into positive energy that would allow the team to move forward.
A new kind of opponent
To achieve that, Askou does not intend to change his approach for the match against Lorient, the first team using a five-defender system that Toulouse will face this season. Lorient go into the match having just beaten Lens at Bollaert 1-0, following a 1-2 home defeat to Troyes and a 0-0 draw at Nice on the opening day.
