Despite having barely achieved survival in the previous season, Paris FC were seen as one of the main candidates for promotion in the new campaign and it is a major disappointment that they eventually failed to make the grade due to a poor play-off display against Grenoble.
In fact, coach Girard’s boys had immediately taken the Ligue 2 by storm, obtaining 8 wins from the first 10 weeks, conceding few goals and scoring at will, thus sitting at the top of the table until week 13. However, between weeks 11 and 25 they turned into a completely different team, incapable of winning – they only managed to beat Guingamp and Amiens – and failing to score in 6 out of 15.
The reasons for such an inexplicable fall can be partially found in the injuries occurring to starters like Nomenjanahary and to a striker, Caddy, who had arrived in October from Setes and had immediately brought new spark to their attack. Besides that, Paris must have simply run out of the mental and physical energy needed to fight for promotion.
Having dropped to the 6th spot, Paris won 5 out of 6 games between weeks 26 and 31 but the gap from the top standings had become excessive by then and so they could not get any higher than 5th place. With just 2 wins from the last 7 rounds, it is only in the very last game of the regular season that they achieved the certainty of a play-off spot.
The lack of a prolific and consistent striker undoubtedly represented a major problem for Paris. Their top scorer turned out to be left-back/winger Abdi, with 9 goals scored and 2 assists, while Guilavogui, Caddy and Laura, their official strikers, only provided 12 goals overall.
This is a problem that will have to be addressed over the summer, if Paris intend to become serious promotion contenders in the next campaign.
