Eirik Horneland: “The team is improving”

Squad update

Benjamin Bouchouari, Louis Mouton and Ibrahim Sissoko are suspended. Compared with last week, Pierre Ekwah is back. Augustine Boakye has been training normally. As for Aïmen Moueffek, he has been ill. He was absent from the pitch for several days, and must first undergo reathletization. We'll have to wait another two or three weeks before seeing him in action.

Major absences

Louis Mouton and Benjamin Bouchouari have started the last three matches, so it's obviously not ideal to have to change this midfield. But we've got other individuals like Florian Tardieu, Lamine Fomba, Mathis Amougou and Igor Miladinovic to make up for these absences. Suspensions and injuries are part and parcel of soccer. A good team can achieve good results even in such situations.

An initial assessment after three matches

I think the team is making progress. Step by step, we're becoming a possession team, recovering the ball more quickly and giving our opponents less time and fewer opportunities. Mentally, after a difficult period when we were taking a lot of goals and scoring few, the team is showing that it's not giving up and has fought back after being behind in the last three games.

Auxerre

They're a difficult team to play against, well organized, and they're going to change a few things because they've taken fewer points in their last few games. We know that away from home, it's a challenge for us. We have to do much better away from our stadium, and we need to create belief. In Paris, we tried to create something positive. We'll have to go into this game in the same frame of mind.