As Marseille sporting director José Anigo watched Andres Mendoza fluff a sitter in stoppage-time during Sunday's 1-1 draw with Nancy, the thought must surely have crossed his mind that perhaps Peguy Luyindula wasn't so bad after all.

The globe-faced OM official practically showed Luyindula out the door himself back in September, but since then the former Lyon striker has netted six times for Auxerre and helped his new club up to second in Ligue 1. Two opportunistic strikes in the Burgundy outfit's 4-0 mauling of Nantes at the weekend were typical of how he has relocated his confidence and if he is too magnanimous to revel in Marseille's current misfortunes, well there are plenty of people who would gladly do the smirking for him.

Any way you cut it, the 26-year-old received a raw deal during his one season at the Stade Vélodrome. Despite finishing top-scorer with 10 goals and professing his desire to stay, he was never made to feel welcome and never received the confidence of the club's technical staff. "I was fed up there," he says. "Fed up with so many contradictions every two minutes. One day, they wanted me, the next they didn't want me. One day, everything was okay, the next it wasn't. If [Anigo] thinks I'm rubbish, the worst footballer in the world, that's his right. No problem. But what I didn't like was that he couldn't be honest with me."

The fact that Marseille are now sniffing around Djibril Cissé and Emmanuel Adebayor proves that the summer acquisitions of Mendoza and Christian Gimenez haven't worked out. Anigo rated the South American duo higher than Luyindula, though, which prompted Auxerre boss Jacques Santini to inject some sanity into the situation. Having coached the Kinshasa-born striker at Lyon during the 2001-02 campaign, he knew exactly who he was dealing with and his admiration for the pacy frontman had been clear since he handed him his first France cap when in charge of Les Bleus.

Luyindula's style of play also fitted neatly into the kind of team Santini intended to build after Guy Roux's long and venerated reign. Whereas Roux was content to leave the opposition in possession and attack on the break, Santini is keen for Auxerre to dictate the play. "We needed a striker who could hold on to the ball because the Coach didn't want us to keep putting ourselves in danger," explains midfielder Kanga Akalé.

As a result, he has been used in a supporting role behind Luigi Pieroni – another revelation this season – and their partnership is blossoming. Luyindula's second on Saturday demonstrated that amply, as he rushed towards goal and attempted to feed a pass through to his Belgian partner from the right-hand side of the area. A Nantes defender managed to get a toe to the ball at full stretch, but the would-be creator followed up and stabbed his shot past the helpless Mickaël Landreau.

That racked the scoreline up to 3-0 after just 39 minutes, and although that may have been harsh on Les Canaris it was hardly surprising given that Luyindula had set the tone when the match was only three minutes old. Latching on to a superb long ball from the equally impressive Benoït Cheyrou, the new recruit sped through the middle of the Nantes defence and calmly slotted the ball home to point the way ahead.

Unsurprisingly, Auxerrois minds have now turned to the possibility of returning to the Champions' League next term, but Luyindula freely admits there is another competition occupying his thoughts – the World Cup.

He scored the very first goal of the Raymond Domenech era, however he has not appeared for Les Bleus since October 2004 and his chances of making the squad for Germany surely took a blow when Nicolas Anelka returned to the fold. If his year at Marseille proved anything, though, it is that he won't give up without a fight… And what better place to keep his run going than at the Stade Vélodrome this Saturday.