Team Focus: Miserly Monaco Claw Their Way Back Up in Ligue 1

The harsh reality of winter may not have bitten Ligue 1 just yet, with the division’s top scorers Lyon and Marseille still occupying the top two places and making the public dream that they can still give Paris Saint-Germain a run for their money in the title race. Still, pragmatism is making a comeback in a season thus far defined by flamboyance. “It’s not like this that AS Monaco will make them flock to the Stade Louis II,” wrote L’Equipe’s Regis Testelin in Sunday’s edition, reflecting on Saturday’s 1-0 over Nantes, “but it’s perhaps in this way that they’ll finish on the podium (in other words, in the top three) in May.”

The total of 5,692 that braved a chilly night in the Principality to see Leonardo Jardim’s side extend their unbeaten run in all competitions to 10 maybe underlined the first half of that point. This is no fantasy football. Yet the latter clause stands up too. Monaco have changed immeasurably under Jardim, which was inevitable after the departures of Radamel Falcao, James Rodríguez and even Emmanuel Rivière, who may not have set the Premier League alight but was important striking back-up last season, scoring 10 times in 19 starts.

In racking up an impressive 80 points, enough to win the title in most seasons, Claudio Ranieri’s team showed considerable élan. They scored 63 times, which looks even better when we consider that this season’s vintage have just 24 in 21 league games to date. If they keep scoring at the current rate, they’d finish with 43 goals. Dimitar Berbatov, whose quality is not in question but is moving into his mid-thirties, is the leading scorer with a modest 5.

Given the reduced resources to work with, it’s how Monaco have changed since the start of the season – culminating in the current run, that leaves them just 5 points shy of third spot, and a second successive entry into the Champions League – which is the most interesting aspect of Jardim’s adaptation to his surroundings.

It’s the Champions League, in fact, that has provided the platform for Monaco’s revival. Always regarded as a fairly cautious coach in his native Portugal, Jardim has composed a team that are a million miles away from being flamboyant in Europe, but their success in his debut campaign in the elite competition has justified the means, particularly in the context of a tough pool containing Bayer Leverkusen, Zenit St Petersburg and Benfica (bear in mind the last two, who didn’t qualify, are both comfortably leading their respective domestic tables). They may have scored just 4 goals in the group stage, but Monaco conceded just once in their six games, giving them the best defensive record of any of the 32 participants in the initial stage.

The Champions League provided a template that has been squarely transferred into Ligue 1. Monaco’s circumspection is underlined by the fact that only two teams, APOEL Nicosia and BATE Borisov, had less efforts on goals than their 9.3 per match.

A look at the average positions of Jardim’s team from the game with Nantes compared to, for example, the season opener against Lorient, shows how the outlook has changed. On Saturday only three players tended to be positioned forward of the centre circle; Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco, Anthony Martial and Bernardo Silva, with the nominal centre-forward Berbatov sitting deeper. Even Fabinho, the right-back who carried much of the team’s attacking threat – he had 2 shots, delivered a key pass and had 73 touches, while 44% of Monaco’s attacks came down the right – had an average position on the halfway line, with the attack-minded Layvin Kurzawa typically stationed even further back on the other side.

Against Lorient, Monaco had been much more bold. Monopolising possession (with 66%), defenders Aymen Abdennour, Ricardo Carvalho and midfield anchor Tiemoué Bakayoko were the only outfield players regularly in their own half. Kurzawa was used almost as an auxiliary winger and the right-back on the night, Nabil Dirar, is actually a wide forward by trade. This gung-ho approach, combined with what players including goalkeeper Danijel Subasic later confirmed as a lack of physical endurance work pre-season, saw Monaco highly susceptible to counter-attacks, such as the one which brought Valentin Lavigne the winner for Les Merlus in that game.

Silva’s growing role is worthy of examination too. Having played just once for Benfica’s first team before leaving Portugal this summer, it was difficult to see where the 20-year-old was going to fit, especially given his relatively slight build and the physical nature of Ligue 1. Instead, he is quietly effective, with Monaco winning 55% of games that he's started (6 out of 11), and only 40% when he hasn't (4 from 10).

What Jardim has managed to achieve is to forge a relationship between his two most creative players. Silva and Ferreira-Carrasco remain the team's creative foils, and they delivered 2 and 4 key passes respectively on Saturday. This is key for Monaco to make the most of their limited attacking opportunities.

The accent, of course, remains on defence. Subasic, after enduring a difficult start to the campaign, has now gone 611 minutes without conceding a goal. Only Saint Etienne's Stéphane Ruffier (703 minutes) has gone longer unbeaten so far this season. The new central defensive partnership of Andrea Raggi and Wallace, forced by the absences of Abdennour and Carvalho, is looking very promising. They completed a mammoth 26 clearances between them against Nantes, and made 6 and 5 interceptions respectively – though their combined tackles of just one shows exactly how organised Jardim is now, and how well his defence is protected.

Monaco will win no prizes for artistic merit this season, but they are proving more and more effective. Trust French football’s odd ones out to put a pin in Ligue 1’s party balloons.

Will Monaco finish in the top three and secure Champions League football again for next year? Let us know in the comments below