“He’s a boy who’s always listening, with an enormous amount of humility. He’s going to the very top.” Caen captain Alaeddine Yahia’s assessment of his former teammate Thomas Lemar, delivered to beIN Sports after the 20-year-old returned with Monaco on Friday night, came from the heart. Yahia’s words, however, were as accurate, as they were well-intended.
After all Lemar, one of the revelations of the Ligue 1 season, had just proved it first hand. Having scored the opener for Leonardo Jardim’s side with a sublime free-kick from range that again underlined his talent, he raised his hands in semi-apology to the fans at the Stade Michel d’Ornano. To complete the hat-trick of illustrating Yahia’s points, he reconvened with his old colleagues in the centre circle at the end, exchanging some good-natured joshing - but with the experienced Yahia and Damien Da Silva doing the talking, and Lemar mostly smiling and lending them an ear.
It explained a lot of what might otherwise be unclear. In his 15th start of the Ligue 1 season, Lemar’s goal made him Monaco’s joint leading scorer - beside another sensational young talent, Bernardo Silva - with five. For a player who had only made six top-flight starts before arriving at the Stade Louis II in the summer, it’s a stellar rise.
Success has hardly been handed to Lemar on a plate this campaign, either. Coming into an environment of renown, but quite mind-boggling volumes of player turnover, the midfielder has established himself as one of Jardim’s go-to men simply by his own strength of will. He has made himself a spot in the line-up simply by demanding it with his performances, taking responsibility from the off, showing for the ball in open play and bossing set pieces.
Lemar has thrived despite another strand of instability, which is that of his personal role. He has been used in virtually every role across attack and midfield this season - apart from defensive anchor and centre-forward - and thrived all over. Logically, his future is probably in central midfield, with an 83.7% pass success rate already (in the context of a side which doesn’t play a possession-based game), 1.2 key passes per game (2 in the Europa League), and 1.5 tackles. The versatility of his skills, though, is evident in his pace and his dribbling ability (1.8 dribbles per match).
It’s all evidence of the terrific work that Caen do with their youngsters, with Lorient’s Raphaël Guerreiro coming from the academy as well as the celebrated N’Golo Kanté, who left the club for Leicester last summer. Giving players like Lemar and Kanté the wings to eventually fly the nest is “part of our job,” as Caen’s philosophical coach Patrice Garande explained to Luis Fernandez after the match, but it is to his immense credit that his side have regenerated and even progressed.
With 9 games of the season left, the modest Normandy club are just two points away from the third and final Champions League place. You can talk about the stasis of the league outside Paris Saint-Germain this season as much as you like, but it doesn’t change the fact that what Garande and his players have done, and are doing, is extraordinary.
This pulsating match was never in danger - even after the opening goal - of turning into The Thomas Lemar Show. Caen have far too much about them for that. Facing a side that have only lost twice away from the Principality this season, they responded with vigour after twice going behind, even without their banned top scorer Andy Delort.
In a game where they were forced out of their natural game by Monaco’s wait-and-see approach - Caen have the lowest average possession in the league, 41.5%, yet had 50.7% in this match - Garande and company used the full gamut of tools at their disposal. They were characteristically efficient with the ball, producing 14 shots (6 on target), and combative without it, winning 33 of the game’s 57 aerial duels.
Given Delort’s shoot-on-sight policy - only Zlatan Ibrahimovic (4.4) takes more shots on average that his 3.9 per game - Caen’s ability to work Danijel Subasic was impressive. The pressure told, with the irrepressible Julien Feret’s penalty leveller followed up by Christian Kouakou’s superb overhead kick equaliser late on. Picked up from Ligue 2 Tours in winter, the 25-year-old hasn’t even got an hour’s worth of top-flight action under his belt yet for his new club, but was still decisive.
Garande’s ability to think outside the box, and, crucially, to get his players to do so as well, was evident in his use of Ronny Rodelin, who has been reborn since his move west from Lille. The winger was used as a direct replacement for Delort in the centre-forward role after scoring seven times already this seaso, and although he didn’t score himself, this curveball allowed him to find space to supply others, offering two key passes, and for the excellent right-back Dennis Appiah to take up advanced positions, as seen in the player average positional report.
The energetic Lemar, it’s fair to say, would have enjoyed himself in this enterprising team had things been different. Instead, that €4m spent on him last summer looks more and more like a bargain. That Kouakou’s equaliser was scored just after he was replaced to a warm ovation by Kylian Mbappé was probably just coincidence, but it underlined two major truths - that Lemar is already a star for Monaco, and that the show goes on for Caen without him, and then some.
