•Squad list for Arras:

Gardiens: Letizi, Moreau
Défenseurs: Apam, Cid, Gace, Hognon, Jeunechamp, Rool
Milieux: Echouafni, Faé, Hellebuyck, Traoré
Attaquants: Bamogo, Ben Saada, Modeste, Mouloungui, Ozokwo, Quansah

Rémy, Kante, and Coulibaly all have injury problems and Adu is suspended (?!), but the rest of the absences are being rested or, in the case of Barul and Moussilou, cruelly ignored. Antonetti said earlier this week that Moreau could get the start if Letizi can’t go and, though the match is being taken seriously, it’s nevertheless thought that guys like Hognon, Cid, Traoré, Ben Saada and Modeste could all figured in the first XI.

•Though he returned to Nice not yet fully recovered from the injury he picked up last month, Rémy is due to start training again on Tuesday, and is expected to be in the squad when L1 resumes on the 10th. Woo hoo!

•Not surprisingly, Roger Ricort is denying that the club are interested in either Dindane (yes, him again) or Sablé, the former because he (still) costs too much, and the latter because, well, they just don’t want him.

•During the break, both Cyril #1 (who Google translate calls “the crustiest“) and Chouf talked to Nice-Matin about the season so far, and both of them, while pleased with the 30 points the team have amassed, pointed to the canceled Grenoble match as the thing that screwed everything up because it “broke our rhythm.” Cursed rain!

•In an interview with the official site, Antonetti also gave his take on the first half, praising the team’s ability to take points even when they don’t play their best, and being his usual, eminently reasonable self in bringing some perspective to how high Nice were flying about a month ago. (He, also, lists the cancellation of the Grenoble match as one of his regrets, along with the loss to Le Havre on the season’s opening weekend.)

•Ospina was voted Nice player of the month for December, because he is just that awesome.

Happy New Year, everybody. Hopefully next time we talk, it’ll be about advancing in the Coupe de France, and not about some sort of humiliating disaster.

Buts: Bamogo (20è), Mouloungui (80è) pour Nice ; N’Daw (8è) pour Nantes

Nice: Letizi – Diakité (Jeunechamp 83è), Apam, Kanté, Rool – Echouafni (c), Faé, Hellebuyck – Bamogo (Coulibaly, 86è), Modeste (Ben Saada, 73è), Mouloungui

Nantes: Alonzo – Pierre, Moullec, Mareval, Gravgaard – N’Daw, Capoue (Keseru, 83è), Da Rocha (c ; Djordjevic, 88è), Faty – Bagayoko, Bekamenga (Dossevi, 78è)

* * *

First and most importantly: This win means seven L1 matches in a row without a loss, four wins in a row in all competitions, and not a single dropped point since Rémy got hurt. Hell, yes.

Though Nice are still struggling to put games away when they have the chance, that was still ten times better than than the Lorient match. The speed of play was quicker, the attack was much more fluid and, for about 15 minutes after Bamogo’s goal, Nice played some really, really good football. And during those 15 minutes, it was obvious why Quansah has been so blown away by the supporters because they were magnificent, and the team were undeniably lifted by them.

Unlike against Lorient, where the defense were the standouts, on Sunday the attackers and the midfielders were the ones who really shone. While the midfield didn’t necessarily stand out as individuals, as a group they made it hard for Nantes to possess the ball in the middle of the park, and also did a nice job of exploiting the space behind their defense by playing long, diagonal balls out to Mouloungui and Bamogo.

I think Bamogo reads this blog and heard me bitching, because he was totally transformed — playing off Modeste, he was dropping deep to pick the ball up and either playing one-touch or, even better, keeping it with his back to goal, and then laying it off before getting forward himself. No more of this “receive the ball and attack the defender, no matter what” stuff. (The vast improvement didn’t stop Antonetti from yelling his name every 30 seconds, of course. That, alone, is making me want to learn French, just so I’ll know what the hell he’s got to tell Habib that’s so important. And it’s always different! The instructions must be very detailed.) Additionally, his goal, though I’m not sure why it stood — Chouf looked to be miles offside when the ball was played, and he was very much involved with the pay — was well-taken. And with his head, no less!

Also impressive up front was Mouloungui who, at times, was very good. He was much freer than he was against Créteil, exchanging with Bamogo and getting into the middle sometimes, rather than just driving over and over again toward the touchline on the left. As for his goal, well, we’ve been over that. There were a lot of questions about Mouloungui’s attitude and toughness before he arrived, but in the past few weeks with Rémy down, I think he’s proved himself beyond a doubt to Nice supporters. Good on ya, Eric.

While his fellow attackers were impressing everyone, meanwhile, poor Anthony Modeste was mostly awful. Apart from a few good moments of digging, when he dropped in to do some dirty work in the midfield, he mostly spent his day demolishing his own confidence by a)squandering chances, b)making awful decisions, and c)giving the ball away. And, sometimes, all three at once. You have to feel bad for the kid — he’s still only 20 years old, and does nothing but work, work, work. He’s just thinking too much right now, so nothing is working, and he’s getting whistled off by his own supporters. (How, Nice fans, does that help things? For god’s sake, he feels shitty enough as it is.) There’s no reason to give up on him yet but, with Rémy apparently coming back this weekend, Mouloungui and Bamogo playing well, and Ben Saada chomping at the bit for space in the team, I don’t know how much of Modeste we’re going to be seeing in the near the future.

At the back, Apam and Kanté both made alarming, careless mistakes, and oldboy Mamadou Bagayoko (who was gracious and hilarious and looking amazing in his postgame interview) was giving them both a surprising amount of trouble. To me it actually looked like a lack of concentration more than anything else — it was as if they got so caught up the team-wide confidence that they drifted mentally and almost paid for it. Luckily, Letizi was sharp, and their teammates were around to clean up the minor messes, but that really needs to stop happening if this whole top-four thing is going to continue.

Additionally, I feel the need to mention that Cyril #1 is playing so well right now that it’s completely ridiculous — I don’t think he’s put a foot wrong in about a month. Also, he and Hellebuyck are playing off one another like they can each others’ minds. Long may it continue. Like, for three or four more years. Please.

First, the team for tomorrow:

Gardiens: Letizi, Ospina
Défenseurs: Apam, Cid, Diakité, Gace, Hognon, Jeunechamp, Kanté, Rool
Milieux: Echouafni, Faé, Hellebuyck
Attaquants: Bamogo, Ben Saada, Modeste, Mouloungui, Quansah
Absents: Coulibaly, Traoré, Rémy (blessés), Adu, Barul, Moreau, Moussilou, Ozokwo (choix de l’entraîneur)

Regarding the bad guys, they’re low in the table but have been getting good results lately, and are hard to beat at home. The good news for Nice, though, is that Lorient are in such injury hell that they’re down to their third-choice keeper for the match: Alban Joinel looks set to make his first Ligue 1 and Lorient appearance in the match. (What do you want to bet he plays a blinder?)

Away from the match, there has been a little news and a bunch of interviews in the last couple days:

•Lilian Laslandes has apparently turned his back on football and Qatar, and instead will join Bordeaux … and play for their handball team. Wow. Didn’t see that one coming.

•Mercato365 are reporting that everyone and his brother want Rémy. And by “everyone,” I mean Newcastle, Spurs, Arsenal (because he’s French, and therefore Arsenal has to come up in every rumor), Juve and Sevillia, not to mention the French clubs who are inevitably sniffing around. Whew. Assuming he can keep banging in goals now and then, at least when he goes there’ll be come competition, and therefore maybe a reasonable price.

•Mercato365 also talked to Apam, who’s got a lot of level-headed things about say about his future: He sees Nice as a place to develop further, but knows big French clubs (OM and Lyon, allegedly) are tracking him, and admits he wants to play in England some day. With all the bullshit badge kissing that goes on these days, there’s something refreshing about a kid who admits his future is up in the air, no matter how long his contract runs. That said, I hope to god Nice can keep him next summer.

•Cyril #1 talked to the official site about being awesome, as well as the team’s effective (for now) mix of very old and very young players. Refreshingly, he downplayed the significance of the olds folks as mentors, insisting the youngsters know what to do, at least on the pitch, without having extra dads around to explain things to them.

•The official site also talked to Eric Mouloungui about his recent success in front of goal, as well as his reputation for being “nonchalant,” a line of questioning he handled remarkable well — no defensiveness at all, at least through Google translate. He freely admits that he needs to work on his focus, and reports that Antonetti isn’t shy about giving him verbal shoves. Somehow, that’s not surprising.

I’ll post a stream if I can find one tomorrow, but don’t get your hopes up.

I admit it, I’m making a post almost entirely to share this picture (Click, and the grinning gets even bigger!) — imagine being a young, nervous kid trying to survive at Monaco with the two of them around. I bet some of the young players from that team still have nightmares about the mocking, harassment, and constant noise. In addition to god only knows what else.

So, there’s that. But, also, there’s info on Rémy, which is much less wonderful than a picture of Giuly and Cyril #1, but also better than it could have been. As Ursus noted in the comments yesterday, Rémy’s ankle injury is nothing more than a sprain, and he’ll be out at most two weeks. There’s hope he could be back before Nantes, though, because he was already running — or, as Google translate prefers to put it, “scampering” — at training today.

Additionally, according to L’Equipe, Traoré is out for two weeks, too, — his is a thigh problem. That poor kid just cannot stay healthy. (Don’t let it get you down, though. Just look at the picture again. Doesn’t that help?)

After the first 30 minutes or so of Saturday’s match, you’d never, ever have been able to convince me that Nice would get a point. Not a million years. As everyone who gave voice to the obvious after the match (Antonetti and Cyril #1 among them) said, they gave Bordeaux waaaaay too much respect, and almost paid for it with a home loss. Happily, though, Nice managed to realize they weren’t playing Barca and gradually woke up — I was watching on a dreadful stream, but even I could tell they put together some nice passing moves in the first half, and were nowhere near as inferior as they’d appeared early-on in the match.

The best part of the whole match for me was injury time. It wasn’t even a little bit pretty, and was highlighted (lowlighted?) by a profound lack of organization, a couple bad decisions, and a near-disaster from Ospina when he took a bad touch and gave the ball away to Gourcuff, but Nice were fighting like crazy, and you could see that, to a man, they believed they could get that second goal back. I don’t know if it was the fantastic support, or the massive stroke of luck in Mouloungui’s offside goal being allowed to stand, or what, but the belief was really, really great to see.

And, while the PK was wrongly given (ala that Lyon PK you may recall), Mouloungui was clever in looking for it when he played the ball into the defender’s body — I’m a huge Ben Saada supporter, but Mouloungui changed the game when he came on, just by being in the right place(s) at the right time(s).*

As Rool (who was old-man awesome) said after the match, it’s hard not to think of this result as balancing out what happened against Lyon. More importantly, though, it shown the team that they really can come back against almost anything. Getting a point after being down 0-2 with five minutes left probably won’t happen again for a long time, but the self-believe from Saturday will hopefully be around for a long while.

Now if they could just STOP GIVING UP PKs, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, we might be in pretty good shape.

Also, regarding the baby keeper: He looked bad on the first goal (I still can’t figure out why it took him so long to get across, he had to have been unsighted) and with that hairy touch in extra time, but other than that he was impressive. Made a crazy, reaction save with his legs shortly after the first goal, and got off his line really well when he needed to, in order to close down a couple breaks. Ospina’s pair of encouraging performances aside, though, Football365 reported Saturday that Letizi will be back in goal on Wednesday, where he’ll stay until the winter break. We’ll see if that actually holds true or not.

And, finally, Apam’s extension has been confirmed by people who aren’t his agent. At best, it means he’s getting paid better and will be around forever. More realistically, it means he’s getting paid better, and has graciously put Nice in a position to get more for him when the inevitable sale comes.

*It’s worth pointing out the class with which Blanc has taken those two poor refereeing decisions at the end of the match. As Antonetti could tell him, that’s not easy to do when you’re in the right — full credit to Blanc.

•Ben Saada played 10 minutes of Tunisia’s 1-3 friendly loss to France yesterday. Friendly or not, it was a big match for him personally, since he’s French-born and won a U-17 title in a France shirt before choosing Tunisia as his senior side. (Based on his grinny, pre-match interview, though, he’s never had much regret about the choice.)

•Quansah scored on a free kick to beat Gambia 1-0, putting Ghana’s U20s into their first Africa Youth Championships since 2001. W00t! (Thanks to commenter Mawuli for the heads-up.)

•There’s still work to do for Rémy, who played 92 minutes (and then was subbed) in the Bleuets’ 1-1 draw with Germany last week, and is quietly confident ahead of today’s massive, all-or-nothing second leg.

•In actual Nice team news, Kanté is suspended for the derby because of accumulated yellows. Superb.

•Letizi missed training yesterday with a calf strain, but he’s hoping to be back on the pitch today. (What a L1 debut Monaco would be for Ospina, huh? No pressure, kiddo.)

•Lots of prematch quotes here, from Faé, Cyril #1, and Hellebuyck, none of whom even bother to throw out the old “it’s just another match” line, given that the match would be massive even if it wasn’t the freaking derby.

•The gaffer, meanwhile, is already working the referees, saying he remembers near-violent conduct from Monaco last season, but — picture a very serious, slightly sad expression on Antonetti’s round face for this bit — that now he “hope[s for] fair arbitration.”

•And, finally, Roger Ricort and Eric Roy gave what is actually a pretty interesting interview radio interview this week. The full interview is up at ogcnice.tv, if you pay for that, but if not, the high points are here, including discussion of the futures of Matt Moussilou and Morrisson Ozokwo (the latter is rendered confusedly by Google Translate), a touch of regret about what happened with Laslandes, and vague plans to buy in the winter transfer window.

Now, if you’re anywhere near Nice, get offline and to the team store so you can see Cyril #1 and Ospina present the new kit. Go! Take pictures!

I’m traveling and working and won’t be able to get a report up until Tuesday (which is probably just as well, since if I wrote it now, you’d get a long piece comparing Italian and French referees, mixed with a lot of mooning over Cyril #1 and being sent off on principle), but until then there’s this, which hurts a lot but is worth watching to see Cohen melting down, and Letizi being epic class at the end.*

Or, if you prefer your video with less football and more disgust, you’ll find Rool here, doing everyone’s heart a bit of good.

*I say that based entirely on Letizi’s expressions and body language, since I can’t understand a damn word he says. If he’s swearing a blue streak and threatening violence, do let me know.

Gardiens: Letizi, Ospina
Défenseurs: Cid, Diakité, Gace, Hognon, Kanté, Rool
Milieux: Coulibaly, Echouafni, Faé, Hellebuyck
Attaquants: Bamogo, Ben Saada, Modeste, Mouloungui, Rémy

Absents: Apam, Moreau, Traoré (blessés), Jeunechamp (suspendu), Asamoah, Barul, Moussilou, Ozokwo (choix de l’entraîneur)

Read ‘em and weep, kids: No Apam. Yikes. I realize the team were without him for the first three matches this season and coped fairly well, but this is Lyon, Yahia is gone, and last time we saw Hognon on the pitch he was clearly not healthy. I repeat: YIKES.

Traoré, too, is out, but at least he and Ben Saada time their injuries considerately, and so far have managed not to be broken at the same time. Dare we be optimistic and see tomorrow as Ben Saada’s big breakout game for Nice? No, you’re right — optimism is never a good idea.

Anyway, best guess at as starting XI:

Letizi
Diakité-Hognon-Kanté-Rool
Echouafni
Fae-Hellebuyck
Bamogo-Ben Saada
Remy

I suppose we could see Coulibaly for Ben Saada, but I hope not. Ben Saada’s been cursed so far and hasn’t managed to make it through a full match without breaking, but his vision is fantastic, and he’s never going to turn into Nice’s mythical new #10 without being given the chance to work his magic in big matches.

Lyon have been flat for the past couple rounds, and are without Grosso and Clerc. Hey, every little bit helps, right? On the other hand, of course, one Hugo Lloris hasn’t give up a goal yet this season, which is an astonishing statistic no matter who they’re playing. (Check over at the Lyon blog for a detailed preview later today, I’m sure Inara and John will hook us up with all the scary info we need.)

Nice got two points from Lyon last season in two scoreless draws, playing without Ederson in the home leg because he Belonged to Them already and wasn’t allowed to kick their asses one last time. That fact, combined with Lyon’s recent form, the importance of this match for Nice — facing their friends and former teammates for the first time, and the mind-boggling possibility of moving into first with a win — and Rémy’s desperate desire to show Lyon what he’s worth makes it hard to be entirely pessimistic going into the match.

Emerse Fae thinks it’ll be 2-1 to Nice. Me? I’ll pray for a miracle win but will weep with joy at a draw.

Apologies for the lack of posts, but there’s nothing freaking going on, apart from the official site failing to keep up with the schedule they made for ogcnice.tv. The one change there is that we can now pay €50 for access to the site for the whole season or, alternately, not pay anything and still have complete access! (One assumes something will change eventually, but they appear to be a little confused about the order in which these things should be done.)

In news that’s not me bitching and moaning (and I’m warning you, there’s not much):

•Nice will face L2 side Boulogne (away) in the Coupe de la Ligue in two weeks.

•Majority shareholder Gilbert Stellardo was on 100% Aiglons this week (you can see it at ogcnice.tv) and addressed a bunch of topics, from Matt Moussilou (going to UAE, they swear), the club’s financial position (they need €5 million/season to compete with the top six), and the goals of the shareholders (they want to make the club better, but aren’t stupid enough not to sell immediately if someone drops out of the sky with a pile of money to invest).

•Apam picked up a leg knock yesterday and has been shut down until tomorrow; he’s questionable for Saturday. Fantastic. (That Yahia loan’s looking particularly bad right now, huh?)

•There’s a very brief, very flattering profile of Antonetti at football.fr, which ends by describing him as “the kind of coach who makes us think about all that is not just money” in football. Damn right.

•Cyril #1 talked to the official site yesterday about the Lyon match, both professing his love for Lloris and Ederson (”we will kiss before and after the match”), and also hoping Nice are the first team to score against Hugo this season. And, if they’re not, he expects a 0-0 draw. Here’s hoping he’s on the pitch Saturday, helping to decide the result.

Job arrived at Nice last August and played in just nine matches, starting three times and making six appearances as a sub, including a trio of appearances that lasted less than five minutes total. It’s been known from the start of training this summer that he wanted to leave since he had no future at Nice; hopefully this move will be good for him (assuming Al Kharaitiyat actually exists).

And, in incidental Cyril news, #1 is riding a Nice scooter at ogcnice.tv for some reason (anyone who speaks French and watches that clip, please explain what’s going on), and #2 is suspended for the Lyon match.

ETA: Thanks to Jeremy, we now know that Al Kharaitiyat not only exist, but also have recently been promoted to the top division in Qatar. Now if they’d just settle up that hosting bill …