Ligue 1 - 2ème Journée

111 111 111

Those more observant will have noticed the phrase at the top of this blog’s page; "French football with an English twist", what this basically means is that every now and again I will be writing a few lines venting my frustrations about Norwich City. This weekend marked the opening day of the Premier League season, and every year at this point I’m filled with hope and excitement for the season ahead. This hope was dully crushed by Fulham of all teams, as Norwich slumped to a 5-0 defeat. We were truly awful, abysmal even, managing just two shots on target all game. I don't know what Hughton has been doing all pre-season but the whole team looked like they were still on holiday and this season looks over before its even started. Yes I’m a massive pessimist but I think relegation is very much on the cards. Right, rant over and time to look at the results on the sunnier side of the channel.

It is only fair to start the round-up at Lille as they marked a momentous moment in their history with the opening of their magnificent new stadium, the Grand Stade Lille Metropole. The 50,000 seater stadium is state of the art and boasts the first retractable roof in France and Lille finally have a stadium worthy of their ambitions. Unfortunately Lille were unable to christen the stadium with a victory as they were held to a one all draw by a plucky AS Nancy side, ex Chelsea star Salomon Kalou grabbing the equaliser for the les Lillois.

Highlights:

Lyon however made easy work of newly promoted side Troyes. A brace from Gomis helped Lyon on their way to a thumping 4-1 victory, but the goal of the game came from Brazilian Michel Bastos who scored a spectacular overhead kick from the edge of the area. That’s two wins out of two for Lyon, the only negative coming as Gourcuff limped off early in the first half.

Bastos' spectacular overhead kick:

Defending champions Montpellier are having a nightmare start to their season, as they went down 2-1 away at Lorient. In fact they led for most of the game after Herrera opened the scoring in the 36th minute, but they never looked comfortable and Lorient dominated for large periods of the match. Lorient were finally rewarded with two goals in stoppage time sealing an astonishing comeback. It was that man Jérémie Aliadière again who got the winner. That’s two goals in two games for him now and Lorient have taken 4 points from PSG and from the reigning champions.

Highlights:

So what of PSG? Well they failed to win again! They were held to an nil-nil draw away at Ajaccio which saw Lavezzi sent off and Ancelotti sent to the stands. PSG were without Ibrahimovic but even with all their other talents they never really threatened apart from Menez missing an absolute sitter from 4 yards out. I know its early days but could PSG be over reliant on Ibra? One man team….surely not.

Marseille moved four points clear of bitter rivals PSG with a comfortable 2-0 win at home to Sochaux. This game was postponed by three hours to avoid the intense Mediterranean heat!  If only England suffered from the same problem. But when the game finally got underway the OM were far too strong for Sochaux and goals from Gignac and Fanni sealed the three points. I’ve been really impressed with Gignac so far this season and I think he’s back to his best after the problems of last season. I’ve backed him at 22-1 to be top scorer this season….As for Sochaux that’s two defeats on the trot and next weekends game against Ligue 1 new boys Reims is a must win game.

Highlights:

Elsewhere Bordeaux extended their Ligue 1 wining streak to 8 games with a 1-0 win over Rennes and Bastia came out on top in battle of the promoted teams, beating Reims 2-1. A great start to the season for the Corsican club. Saint Etienne’s poor start to the season continued as they went down 2-1 away at Toulouse with highly rated Ben Yedder and Capoue getting the goals for Toulouse. There was also a first win for Stade Brestois and Valenciennes and Nice shared the spoils in a nil-nil draw at the Stade du Hainaut.