Adi Hütter will be looking for drastic changes from his AS Monaco side as they visit Rodez AF in the Coupe de France following their 3-1 defeat to Stade de Reims last weekend.
Monaco started the season strongly and even occupied the top spot from the second game week until the fifth, but performances have not been quite as consistent since then. The loss to Reims even saw Les Monégasques drop out of the podium positions.
‘We really need to make changes’ – Adi Hütter
Speaking to L’Équipe, Hütter was clear in his disappointment over the loss, ‘we’re not in our best physical shape… my message was that we have to quickly get back on track. The first days of this week, we worked a lot on our principles, on our identity.’
However, the manager was quick to clarify what he meant by ‘physical shape,’ when explaining why his team lost against Reims. ‘We failed in our principles. We deserved this defeat… we weren’t aggressive enough. Our body language was not good. I had the feeling from the start of the match that we were making easy mistakes in our first touches of the ball, we were not dynamic enough.’
Hütter continued that training this week has emphasised ‘more intensity, to find our principles, our aggression, as we did at the start of the season, when we impressed people.’ He was not willing to blame absences within his squad on their decline in performances, ‘we lost a few players, but we are Monaco, we have a very good squad.’
On the prospect, that Monaco may field a young team against Rodez, the manager was coy stating only that ‘everything is possible. But we really need to make changes.’
