IT says much about the malaise that had set in at Monaco under Leonardo Jardim that Robert Moreno has succeeded in injecting the club with a dose of positivity despite having only been in charge for three weeks and having presided over only one victory in his first three matches.
Moreno has brought new dynamism to Monaco’s training sessions and a new tactical approach to their football. Although it is early days, there have already been signs of progress, with Monaco beating a redoubtable Reims side in the Coupe de France and drawing 3-3 with Paris Saint-Germain to end a run of nine straight defeats against the team from the capital.
“The system is tactically much clearer,” says goalkeeper Benjamin Lecomte. “Our football is more fluid, more calm, and there’s confidence.”
Jardim was sacked by Monaco for a second time shortly after Christmas. Monaco had ended a difficult first half of the campaign with an impressive 5-1 demolition of Lille, but hopes that it might earn Jardim a stay of execution proved short-lived. Oleg Petrov, Monaco’s vice-president, had inherited Jardim after taking over from Vadim Vasilyev in February last year and the pair never saw eye-to-eye.
Impressed by Monaco tonight. Robert Moreno seems to have got them playing exciting, attacking football again. Defence needs sorting out though, but so does PSG's. Gelson Martins-Golovin-Baldé-Ben Yedder is a proper attack.
— SamW (@SamW_AFC) January 12, 2020
With Monaco off the pace in their quest for Champions League qualification despite another summer of significant investment in the squad, Petrov was finally able to convince owner Dmitry Rybolovlev that the time had come for the architect of the club’s stunning 2017 Ligue 1 title success to be ushered through the exit door for good.
Axing Jardim and appointing Moreno is by far the biggest call that Petrov has made since taking control of Monaco’s sporting affairs and the Russian made a point of accompanying his new recruit onto the training pitches at La Turbie on the Spaniard’s first day in the job. As a coach with no prior experience of managing at club level, Moreno represents something of a gamble, but the 42-year-old’s arrival reflects the fact that both he and Monaco were in desperate need of a fresh start.
Had things worked out as Moreno had hoped, he would currently be planning Spain’s assault on Euro 2020. But his successful spell as head coach of La Roja ended amid bitter recrimination, with Luis Enrique accusing his former ally of being “disloyal” and possessing “excessive ambition” after returning to the role from which he had stood aside to take care of his young daughter, Xana, who died of bone cancer last August. Moreno, who angered Enrique by telling him that he wished to continue as head coach until after Euro 2020, left the stadium in tears following Spain’s final qualifier against Romania at the Wanda Metropolitano in November.
Putting his disappointment aside, Moreno arrived at Monaco full of ideas. In the truest Catalan traditions, his training sessions have focused on possession and pressing, with detailed tactical work firmed up by daily video analysis sessions. Whereas Jardim’s football tended to be reactive and based around counter-attacks, the new man wants his side to take every game by the scruff of the neck.
“I want a team where the players always play together,” said Moreno, who is taking daily French lessons. “We always need to have all the players defending and all the players attacking. We all need to get behind a common idea.”
The new approach has gone down well with Monaco’s players and particularly those with prior experience of the kind of football that Moreno is seeking to introduce.
“The methods are different, that’s for sure,” said Cesc Fàbregas. “He comes from the Barcelona school – his training sessions are similar to what I did with Pep Guardiola and Tito Vilanova. I understand his ideas, but you have to work physically because he wants us to run lots and lots and lots.”
Robert Moreno (Monaco coach) "Valverde sacked by Barcelona? Nothing surprises me in football anymore. Nothing at all. I'm an example of that (laughs)."
— FC Barcelona Fl (@FCBarcelonaFl) January 15, 2020
Monaco’s longstanding defensive problems had prompted Jardim, at the behest of his players, to adopt a system of three at the back, but Moreno has opted for a flexible 4-3-3 formation that can be adjusted according to the opposition. For the 3-3 draw away in Paris, left-sided central midfielder Aleksandr Golovin played in a hybrid role that turned the system into more of a 4-4-2. In the 4-1 defeat at home to the same opponents in mid-week, Fàbregas was pushed on ahead of Golovin and Tiémoué Bakayoko to take up the number 10 role in a 4-2-3-1.
Moreno has given skipper Kamil Glik an opportunity to rediscover the form that he showed during Monaco’s charge to the title three years ago, but the Pole’s error-prone centre-back partner Jemerson has been sidelined. In attack, the new coach has sought to use the pace in wide areas of Keita Baldé – scorer of both goals in the 2-1 cup win over Reims – and Gelson Martins, with Ligue 1’s 14-goal top scorer Wissam Ben Yedder playing through the middle. The new set-up has cost Islam Slimani his place in the starting line-up, although the Algerian did come on to score the equaliser at Parc des Princes.
Wednesday’s loss to an on-song PSG left Monaco seven points below the Champions League positions in ninth place. Moreno’s side face a thankless assignment against giant-killers Saint-Pryvé Saint-Hilaire in the Coupe de France on Monday, but a generally clement schedule of league fixtures over the next six weeks – home games against Strasbourg, Angers, Montpellier and Reims; trips to Nîmes, Amiens and Dijon – should provide opportunities to close the gap on the top three.
Things did not work out the last time Monaco employed a rookie club coach, with Thierry Henry lasting only three months, but a spell at Stade Louis II had previously proved a successful managerial launchpad for such famous names as Arsène Wenger, Claude Puel and Didier Deschamps. If Moreno can build on the promise he showed during his stint in charge of Spain, Monaco could be onto something very special.
