Marseille’s season is collapsing and Roberto De Zerbi is not helping | Ligue 1

And just like that, has the magic gone? After losing four of their last five league matches, the lustre has come off Marseille’s season. Their latest defeat – a 3-1 loss against a Reims side that had not won in the league since early November – may be the worst of all of them.

Their 3-1 defeat to PSG before the international break bears no shame but losing to Reims, a struggling Lens side and to Auxerre by three goals is worrying for a team who have not only invested heavily in players such as Adrien Rabiot, Amine Gouiri, Mason Greenwood, Pierre-Emile Højbjerg and Ismaël Bennacer, but also in a manager, Roberto De Zerbi, who they dearly hoped would be a stabilising force after a few tumultuous seasons.

In tearing through three managers last season – Marcelino, Gennaro Gattuso and Jean-Louis Gasset – Marseille stumbled in the league, finishing outside of the European places. The arrival of De Zerbi looked like a coup given his achievements in Italy and England. He was duly (albeit controversially) backed in the transfer window, with Rabiot, Greenwood, Elye Wahi and Lilian Brassier among the most eye-catching names joining a revamped squad.

It looked to be working a charm earlier in the season. Marseille were scoring goals for fun; Greenwood looked at ease; and Luis Henrique, once derided as a colossal mistake, looked a player reborn. But lately – even with another nominally impressive window in January, including the arrivals of Gouiri and Bennacer – it’s been another story, and one has to wonder if De Zerbi’s fiery presence on the touchline and on the training pitch has occluded his football.

During this recent run of poor form, he has looked desperate to find the right attack, chopping and changing with ruthless abandon. Having moved Wahi on to Eintracht Frankfurt, and being without a natural striker besides Neal Maupay, he has used Gouiri in an advanced role, dropped Greenwood (including in Le Classique) and started Bilal Nadir. De Zerbi had questioned Greenwood’s fitness and the mental strain of playing a main role in the team, but leaving him out will not have worked wonders for the Englishman’s confidence, nor does it seem a smart decision in light of his goalscoring record. He remains the second top scorer in Ligue 1 this season after Ousmane Dembélé.

Greenwood was back in the fold on Saturday but to no avail, as an opportunistic Reims took advantage of a Marseille team that still lacked cohesion, especially at the back. At the start of the season, when Marseille won four of their first five games and were still comfortably second at Christmas, the team generally played a 4-2-3-1, but lately, despite a lack of natural centre-backs, De Zerbi has opted for a 3-4-2-1, with Rabiot playing closer to the goal. The results have hardly borne this out as a solid strategy.

The absence of Luiz Felipe has forced De Zerbi to alter his backline, but at what point must he absorb some of the blame for this tactical switch, which is yet to bear fruit? Brassier was masterful with Brest last year, playing an integral role in helping them reach the Champions League. His signing in the summer, initially on loan, looked a masterstroke for Marseille, but he made just nine starts before being returned to his parent club. Now with Rennes, he has been one of the most impressive players under Habib Beye, the team keeping clean sheets in five of his seven starts.

The same is also true for Chancel Mbemba, who is yet to see the pitch this season, frozen out by De Zerbi despite his vast experience and strong performances last season. Rather than swallow his pride and work with Brassier or welcome Mbemba back into the fold, the Italian has preferred to experiment with converted full-backs (Pol Lirola, Amir Murillo) or midfielders (Geoffrey Kondogbia) in their place. Even Felipe, a central defender by trade, has only featured twice for the club since his January move.

Through all of this, De Zerbi has been able to call on Leonardo Balerdi, the experienced Argentinian who has added balance to the team and allowed more callow teammates around him to maintain a certain standard. Now, though, Balerdi – who was forced off on Saturday – looks set to miss the rest of the season with a knee injury, and the same is true for Felipe, whose hamstring injury looks to limit his availability as well.

The pressure now lands squarely on De Zerbi. Injuries and the natural vagaries of form have played their part, but this expensively assembled squad should be performing better than it has, especially in recent weeks following a switch instigated by the manager. Will his stubbornness in excluding the likes of Mbemba, or in playing the likes of Luis Henrique at wing-back, cost this team, or can he adjust his tactics (playing a 4-3-3 with Derek Cornelius and Kondogbia as centre-backs) to add more balance to this team? Marseille’s hopes of returning to the Champions League – once seen as a near-sure thing – hang in the balance, and De Zerbi’s spell in charge could be as short as that of his predecessors should he fail at this task.

Talking points

While Marseille have stumbled, other sides have picked up the pace in the race for the Champions League places, with Monaco’s comeback derby win over Nice the biggest result of the weekend. After missing a penalty – an issue that has dogged Monaco in recent editions of this fixture – Mika Biereth responded well to level the match after half-time before Breel Embolo slammed home a winner 15 minutes from time. The 2-1 victory takes Adi Hütter’s side into second place, and while there are challenging fixtures to come (particularly a visit from Marseille in a fortnight), their form and togetherness makes them favourite to finish in second place.

Strasbourg continued their charge up the table with an impressive win over Lyon on Friday night. Their fitness and constant pressure told in the second half as they racked up four goals (all from different scorers) to win 4-2. Liam Rosenior has his young team going from strength to strength and, with a fairly comfortable run-in ahead, a return to Europe may be on the cards. Four wins in a row have taken them up to six in the table, just a point behind Lille and Nice.

It looks like Montpellier’s race is run. After a heartbreaking 1-0 defeat at Auxerre (who dominated the match and deserved to win), MHSC are now nine points from safety. They still have a postponed match against Saint-Étienne to be replayed – or not – and a reasonable set of fixtures in the run-in but, Jean-Louis Gasset’s side do not seem to have what it takes to stay up. Given the way relegated clubs such as Bordeaux have struggled over the last few years, one fears for the 2011-12 champions, who provided French football with its best story (save Monaco in 2017) in recent years. The hope is that they can rebuild next year in Ligue 2 and make a quick return to the elite.