If there was any one moment that summed up St Etienne’s season, it occurred 38 minutes into Sunday’s humiliating 5-1 defeat to Strasbourg.
Claude Puel’s side were already a goal down when Zaydou Youssouf sliced the ball into his own net.
At the very same time, centre-half Timothee Kolodziejczak clobbered his Sainte team-mate Etienne Green for good measure, forcing the goalkeeper off the pitch and onto the treatment table after connecting with his head, rather than the ball.
Without their England U21 international producing his usual one-man show between the sticks, Les Verts collapsed like a house of cards in a wind tunnel, going down 5-1 while falling four points adrift of safety.
Eight games in, St Etienne are winless, hopeless and, now, goalkeeper-less.
“We are in a difficult situation. The third goal hurt our head and cut our legs,” former Leicester city and Southampton boss Puel said, clinging to his job as blood pours from the open wounds of St Etienne’s season (L’Equipe).
Does Etienne Green need to escape his Ligue 1 nightmare?
Named after the city in which his mother was born, the appropriately-named Etienne Green always seemed destined to wear the Sainte jersey.
Football is no fairytale, however, and with TEAMtalk reporting that Premier League rivals West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur are prepared to go head-to-head for the Colchester-born 21-year-old, Green must decide whether to turn his back on mother’s birthplace in favour of the club his uncle prefers.
If destiny took him to St Etienne, then foresight, rather than fate, should decide his next move. Stay at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard and relegation will be his reward.
Dropping out of the top flight would be potentially catastrophic, too, for a side who have been hit harder than most by the double-edged sword of the COVID-19 pandemic and the collapse of Mediapro’s Ligue 1 television deal.
At least, in Green, St Etienne have a potentially valuable asset who could be worth more to the club in a financial sense than he is in a sporting one.
And that, given the way they fell apart without him in Strasbourg, is saying something.
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