Kamara dominates

With a return to the lineup from Dario Benedetto and Alvaro Gonzalez, André Villas-Boas made choices that paid off on Saturday. The first was to position Kamara as a defensive midfielder, a position he sometimes played last season and as a youth academy player.

By the end of the match, we his strength of performance was clear: 84.6% duels won (team-high), 12 balls intercepted (co-team high), a key pass and an interception to kickoff the second goal.
Home at the Orange Velodrome, Kamara showed what we already know about him and what we've come to expect. He's to be calm, technical and clean. The assist to Sanson's goal was just the icing on the cake.

Triangles, Defence & Pestering

Wedged between an electrifying Benedetto and Alvaro, the center of the pitch dominated the match and served as the driving force in Les Olympiens' domination. Well supported by Rongier, Kamara was able to cut Lille's passing lanes before they opened. His positioning off the ball and quality of pressing to help the Rongier-Sanson midfield pair clearly stifled their opposites in André-Soumaoro. Defensively, the central defense and Kamara's holding role formed a locked-down triangle, granting only a few crumbs to LOSC.

Although it is still too early to write it in stone, 4-3-3 produced a quality performance similar to the first half against Montpellier. Alvaro was declared fit the day before the match, so the Portuguese coach moved toward a solution that could be set up the same against Lyon this week.