“The teams at the bottom of the table don’t want to die”: Patrice Canayer’s warning before Dijon – MHB

Le Brésilien Bryan Monte est à la recherche d’un second souffle. SYLVIE CAMBON

Le Montpellier Handball se déplace chez la lanterne rouge de Starligue ce dimanche à 15h15. Méfiance.

Three matches, three victories: Montpellier Handball perfectly managed the post-international break recovery. Despite the setbacks and lengthy medical press releases, everything is going well. The next ten days will tell whether this return to business is a springboard to the top or just a flash in the pan.

Also read: The joker, the departures of Sebastian Karlsson and Karl Konan, the MHB squad next year… president Julien Deljarry takes stock

Ten days of a build-up which should culminate next Sunday with the reception of Paris Saint-Germain, leader of the championship. By then, the MHB will have consolidated (or not) its fourth place in the Champions League standings on Wednesday in Plock (Poland) and, barring a bad joke, passed the Dijon stage without incident, this Sunday after -noon.

The flop at the end of the corridor

The risk would of course be to project oneself a little too quickly and miss the essential point. Patrice Canayer reminded his players of this when getting on the bus on Saturday morning: "Look at the latest results. On Friday, Ivry beat Toulouse and last week, Dijon won in Aix-en-Provence. At this stage of the season, the bottom teams don't want to die. We have been warned. If we're not serious…" The flop is at the end of the corridor of the Palais des sports Jean-Michel Geoffroy.

Montpellier follows directly with the trip to Poland, eighteen players are on the trip. Among them, the last two cripples, Diego Simonet and Lucas Pellas, injured in an ankle, Wednesday evening against Celje.

"The training was rather reassuring, we will take stock tomorrow (this Sunday)", the coach advances. Although he says he does not "have the luxury of preserving" his best elements, it is difficult to see Patrice Canayer their give a lot of playing time if the matter is quickly folded in Dijon.

Stas Skube, back at his best, Bryan Monte or Kylian Prat, to name only the right-handers, will have to stick with it.

Montpellier (the group): Bolzinger, Desbonnet. Karlsson, Simonet, Pellas, Fernandez, Panic, Arthur Lenne, Skube, Prat, Konan, Cornette, Monte, Fournié, Porte, Yanis Lenne, Berthier and Dubois. I subscribe to read more