L1: Monaco in slow motion, Saint-Etienne foot to the floor, Bordeaux red lantern
Without breath, AS Monaco stumbled on the poorly ranked Lorient (0-0) on Sunday and let slip the 4th Strasbourg, effective in Angers (1-0), in a Ligue 1 to which Saint-Etienne clings, which gave up last place to Bordeaux.
Without breath, AS Monaco stumbled on the poorly ranked Lorient (0-0) on Sunday and let slip the 4th Strasbourg, effective in Angers (1-0), in a Ligue 1 to which Saint-Etienne clings, which gave up last place to Bordeaux.
– Monaco without idea –
The Monegasques stalled at Louis-II, a week after sinking OL (2-0). This setback eliminated Philippe Clément’s team in 6th place, between Rennes (5th) and Lyon (7th), with the same number of points.
A link in the standings was however within firing range against Lorient residents who came to the Principality with, in their luggage, a negative balance of seven consecutive away defeats in the Championship.
Too predictable, too slow, AS Monaco made a disappointing and frustrating copy. This allows Nice to maintain a five-point lead, despite losing 2-0 at Lyon the day before.
“The ranking? It’s always the same! We have to stay focused on ourselves. And do our best each time to win,” commented Belgian coach Philippe Clement, appointed at the start of January.
Worst team of the season outside before this trip, Lorient turned their backs and improved their victory against Lens (2-0) last week.
“We bent, but we did not break,” rejoiced coach Christophe Pélissier. “We are launched in our maintenance operation”.
– Saint-Etienne, life in green –
Maintaining it again becomes an attainable dream for Saint-Etienne, overthrowing Clermont (2-1) and credited with three consecutive successes.
The Greens, led 1-0 at the break, come out of the red zone by climbing to 18th place, that of play-off, with 21 points, one more than Metz (19th, 20 pts), host of Marseille in the evening , and that Bordeaux (20th, 20 pts), still beaten on Sunday.
They had not left the last two places in Ligue 1 since the 2-0 defeat suffered in Montpellier on September 12, 2021, during the 5th day.
“My team does not know when to give up. The players behaved admirably, especially at the end when we did not have control in the second half. We still have to remain vigilant with fourteen games to play”, a Pascal Dupraz statement, arrived in Forez in December after Claude Puel was sidelined.
During the second half of February, his team will have a tight schedule with the reception of Strasbourg and a trip to the leader Paris Saint-Germain.
The happiness of the Stéphanois is the misfortune of the Bordelais, beaten 3-2 on Sunday at Lens (8th) after a catastrophic start to the match, where they conceded three goals in less than thirty minutes.
This is the fourth defeat in five Ligue 1 matches played in 2022 for the Girondins, without a coach since the layoff of Vladimir Petkovic, replaced on Sunday by the interim Jaroslav Plasil, former midfielder and captain of the team.
Sunday’s card was administered by Brest against Troyes (5-1), the sixteenth.
Trojan captain Adil Rami reduced the gap just before the break (45th, 1-2), but he fell on two opponents in even better shape: Uruguayan striker Martin Satriano, on loan this winter from Inter Milan , offered himself a double in the first period, before Franck Honorat imitated him in the second.
– Strasbourg sticks Nice –
At the top of the table, Strasbourg is one of the winners of the weekend. The 1-0 win at Angers propels Julien Stéphan’s side just one point behind third-placed Nice.
The Alsatians raced in the lead after a superb volley signed Kevin Gameiro (11th), the fifth but in four consecutive league games for the former striker from PSG, Sevilla, Atlético Madrid or Valencia.
Sunday afternoon, Nantes pocketed a narrow 1-0 victory against Reims, whose central defender and captain Yunis Abdelhamid were sent off in the first quarter of an hour for too brutal an intervention against Fabio. The whistled foul gave birth to a free kick that Moïse Simon (17th) transformed directly.
The Canaries are ninth, level on points with 10th Lille and one unit less than Lens, eighth.
By Jérémy TALBOT / Paris (AFP) / © 2022 AFP