Currently topping the table, HBA's departure doesn't seem to have affected them, in fact they are doing better than last year'/ start. Got young talents in Koziello, Cyprien and Riccardo Pereira. Experience in Dante, Seri and Bodmer. As well as rejects who are playing on their last life like Balotelli and Belhanda. Strong candidate for the title?

Lucien Favre

4-0 Monaco was a big result I believe? Hope they do a Leicester

Really hope Balotelli does well, We have a solid sell on clause on him.

the LB Sarr is the best defender on the team and he's only a teenager... according the Nice Matin, he was the one calling out responsibilities on defense against Monaco. He was even telling Dante what to do lol. That's pretty insane given his age.

Nice thread bro

Balotelli is actually looking fit and making runs as the sole central CF... it's stunning tbh. I've never actually seen him make these runs before. Who knows how long it lasts however.

Monaco's defense are not very easy to deal with and Balotelli torched the CBs.

The talent has never been the question with Balotelli.

The crazy thing is that Balotelli has 2 good games with Nice... and Raiola come out and says that he is destined to play for an elite club in the EPL if he does well this season. This guy

Lucien Favre is known to be a very meticulous coach who will definitely see to it that Balotelli will understand what is needed for him to improve his play. I remember a comment by Marco Reus who was told by Favre even how to run and how to put his steps to improve his handling of the ball. I guess Balotelli might benefit a lot from a coach who works thus carefully with every single player.

Its too early still, he has these runs before. He was excellent at some point for Milan and for the NT during the euro 2012.

sportsczy wrote:Balotelli is actually looking fit and making runs as the sole central CF... it's stunning tbh. I've never actually seen him make these runs before. Who knows how long it lasts however.

This is the one thing that gives me hope tbh. Him as a lone striker has never really worked because he didn't want to/couldn't do the runs and the off the ball movement. He always wanted the ball at his feet.

An Ibra-less PSG is a definitive blow to their side, think its much more palpable for another team to win Ligue Uh this season

ES wrote:An Ibra-less PSG is a definitive blow to their side, think its much more palpable for another team to win Ligue Uh this season

Nah, it won't even be within 15 points maybe more.

Although i'm quite surprised to hear Favre is Nice manager.

Nice brought in Chinese and US investors around May of this year and they already have a brand new stadium...  the current president of the club only owns 20%.  With the new ownership, the club has good finances going forward.  Nothing crazy; but they can pay for good managers and good players.

Just to put in perspective... they gave a competitive offer in terms of wages to Ben Arfa but he decided to go to PSG because he got 20 mil signing bonus just to sign there + his big wages.  Of course, Ben Arfa is screwing up as he usually does when there's any pressure

I think Balo is the same way... he'll do well, go for a bigger club and then mess up because his mentality hasn't changed. He's just been put in an environment at Nice that caters to him, which won't happen at bigger clubs.

It's too bad about Ben Arfa; I was going to mention him too. He should have stayed at Nice. So much talent going to waste in that player, much like with Balotelli.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

ES wrote:An Ibra-less PSG is a definitive blow to their side, think its much more palpable for another team to win Ligue Uh this season

Nah, it won't even be within 15 points maybe more.

Although i'm quite surprised to hear Favre is Nice manager.

.

Think we should wait for more than a couple games to sing Balotelli's praises tbh. This guy has flopped at every club he's gone to since Inter, besides a brief decent spell for City. Mentality of a loser.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvevprZXgAAGZk8.jpg

Good thing about them is that they have talented players along with a good manager so it's not about 'spirit, determination and grit"

They finished 4th last season 2 points behind 2nd place so their rise was coming. I am not sure if they will be able to maintain this level but finishing in the CL spot will be a great achievement alone never-mind winning the league.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvnfNHBWAAIJpY_.jpg

Plea is now on fire... but I'm not all that high on him. Great pace but his technique is Cavani-like. 7 goals so far and he only plays on top (where he scores goals) when Balotelli is out.

They seemed to have hit a pretty lengthy bad patch:

Got dumped out of Europa League
Got dumped out of both Cups
Just one win in last Five league games

Any reasons???

They got dumped out of EL during the time they were storming the league so there's no correlation there.

They have no squad depth. You've got the starting 11 and then nothing. So when any of those 11 are forced to play 2-3 games a week or hit bad form or injuries happen... the team gets exposed.

All the stars perfectly aligned for them the first half of the league season. Now, it's back to normal. It was unsustainable for any who actually followed them.

They were basically Liecester except Leicester had no Europe and their lucky star didn't go away all season.

Hopefully they will hold-on and at least finish in top-three.