Stade Reims vs Bastia preview - Printant wants focus on football

Posted Saturday, November 29, 2014 by PA

Bastia coach Ghislain Printant wants the club to put a bumpy few days behind them and instead train all their energy into the battle to avoid relegation, starting with a trip to Reims this weekend.

The Corsican club have been splashed across the papers this week, with the positives of Printant being appointed coach until the end of the season overshadowed by the negatives of striker Brandao facing the possibility of a spell behind bars.

Printant was handed the reins on a temporary basis earlier this month following the dismissal of Claude Makelele, and has done enough since to persuade club management to stick with him for the rest of the campaign.

One of his first jobs was to digest the news Brandao has been sentenced to a month in prison and fined 20,000 euros for headbutting Paris St Germain midfielder Thiago Motta after the pair clashed in the tunnel following a Ligue 1 match in August.

It remains to be seen whether Brandao will serve the sentence or do community service instead, but Printant is determined to unite the club under the one banner of fighting for top-flight survival.

"We all have a mission; supporters, staff, players, managers. The club must be be playing in Ligue 1 next season," he told a press conference on Friday.

"Let us see whether we can take our famous battling qualities out of Bastia and all the way to Reims."

Bastia currently sit just one point above the bottom three but are unbeaten in two matches ahead of Saturday's trip.

Hosts Reims are defending an unbeaten six-game run but coach Jean-Luc Vasseur feels that form will be threatened by a fired-up Bastia.

"Bastia have already been here and beaten Reims on home soil (in the 2012/13 season)," he told the club's website. "This game will be a test for us tomorrow.

"My team are progressing but we still have much to learn. We do not always do enough in attack, for example. But we are improving."

Both teams have absentees to deal with. Reims are missing the suspended Grejohn Kyei while Mads Albaek, Sacha Bastien, Nicolas De Preville and Alexi Peuget are injured.

Bastia are without injured quartet Sebastien Squillaci, El-Hadji Ba, Juan Pablo Pino and Junior Tallo, while Brandao continues to serve a six-month ban.