Following Côte d'Ivoire's defeat by Nigeria on Matchday 2 of Group A, Guy Demel spoke out about Jean-Louis Gasset's men's poor performance, which has left them in a bad position. "People are going to say I'm hard on the team, but it's the opposite, I love them as much as I say. We've seen that several times over the last few months, even if Côte d'Ivoire were automatically qualified, that the matches weren't good enough. It's hard to come into this competition and suddenly find that link, that relationship, that connection. We saw very slow transmissions, very slow defensive retreats. And very few ideas offensively. The list goes on. All this has been identified. All you have to do is analyze Côte d'Ivoire's matches all year round. This is simply a pale copy of what the national team has done throughout Gasset's tenure. I'm not against him. It's just an analysis of the game the Elephants are playing," says the Ivorian consultant on Canal +.
