At the head of a team which has won only one of its first twelve matches and which points to an uncomfortable nineteenth place, Philippe Hinschberger can legitimately feel threatened in the event of another failure against Valenciennes next Saturday. However, is the coach of Amiens SC the main responsible for the current failure? Can using it as a fuse be enough to avoid an increasingly inevitable fall? The debate is open.
The results plead against him
In any normally constituted and ambitious club, a coach is legitimately threatened when the latter has a record similar to that of Amiens SC over the first twelve days of the championship. With only one victory on the clock, already five losses to its credit and above all a nineteenth place with only nine points gleaned, the Picard club quite simply has the worst start to the season in its history in Ligue 2.
A ninth consecutive game without a win, Saturday night against Valenciennes, could therefore be fatal for Philippe Hinschberger. ” By force of circumstances, the match of VA seems to take more and more of a considerable stake for him, recognizes Antoine Caux. I deplore him, because I think it is a false solution, but he must definitely feel in the hot seat. He was the best rookie of the offseason. He embodied a new cycle in total rupture with the choice of Luka Elsner. So are we going to change just one guy and keep playing our ostrich about sports policy? »
An ideal fuse for the Amiens SC
Even if the recruitment is failed, the workforce lacking cohesion and some players below their intrinsic level, it is always easier to fire a single man, the coach, rather than to proceed to a palace revolution in during the season. Professional trainer since 1997, Philippe Hinschberger is well aware of this and he knows he is in an ejection seat in the event of another bad result. Since the dawn of time, the trainer has been the ideal fuse in the event of a poor result, with managers betting on a hypothetical psychological shock, which is increasingly rare and has a limited effect over time.
If Luka Elsner was clearly not the man for the job after the departure of Christophe Pelissier, the Amiens SC could well have consumed three different coaches in just over a year, with a view to a future dismissal by Philippe Hinschberger barely four months after his appointment in place of Oswald Tanchot. ” When you change your coach every six months, at some point it is because the problem does not come from there, asserts Fabien Reinert. The change of position does not always have to come from the athlete. Philippe Hinschberger still has more than 500 matches in Ligue 2, he knows his job, he knows this championship. If he doesn’t … “
A responsibility more than ever shared
Certainly, Philippe Hinschberger is perhaps not in his best period at the moment, with choices not always inspired, like the tenure of Iron Gomis in a winger role that raises questions. ” We can also wonder about the presence of Jack Lahne at the forefront of the attack when Tolu was back from suspension. Now, Philippe Hinschberger is a coach who has convictions regarding the game. He came to Amiens with the idea of playing attacking football, relying on simple and controlled systems such as 4-3-3 or 4-4-2, recalls Romain Pechon. Today, he seems so short of a solution that he is thinking about setting up a 3-way defense, which is not his habit. This means that he is groping, that he is struggling to find solutions. “
However, if Philippe Hinschberger is there today, it is also because the summer was once again badly negotiated by his superiors. Eager to have a workforce quickly formed, like all of his predecessors, the former coach of GF38 had to wait until the last hours of the transfer window to see recruits arrive in line with the objective of the top 5. Favorable to the arrival by Daniel Congré in July, the 62-year-old technician encountered the reluctance of his sports management, believing that his arrival represented too great a risk. This did not prevent Dijon, executioner of Amiens SC last weekend, to bet on him and even to entrust him with the captain’s armband. With success so far.
For his part, Amiens preferred to wait until the last minute to recruit quality players but arrived out of form, within a group already in doubt, without the possibility of integrating in good conditions. Running tirelessly against lost time, Amiens therefore plays each match with insane pressure and without the necessary serenity for this team to finally get in working order. A mode of operation which never ceases to show its limits and which should not be passed over in silence, each time placing the responsibility for the failure on the one and only coach.
Valid once, with Luka Elsner, this excuse can no longer be taken and everyone owes their share of responsibility today, starting with Bernard Joannin who continues to have blind trust in John Williams, whose recruitment is however very little inspired for a long time. And yet, he never seems threatened unlike the coaches …
Editorial staff (with France Bleu Picardie)
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