Virage Sud: Ligue 1 round-up: 5ième Journée

Marseille march on as Norwich falter

This weekend saw contrasting fortunes for my two clubs. Norwich can’t buy a win for love nor money as they played out a boring nil-nil draw, which included probably the worst second half I’ve ever I seen - long ball after long ball, but what else can you expect when you’re playing long ball specialists, West Ham. I will be making the long trip up to St. James Park next weekend and I’d bet my student loan that we wont be getting three points there. So the wait for three points looks set to continue for a few more weeks at least.... In stark contrast Marseille can’t stop wining as they made it five from five away at AS Nancy. Marseille were dominant for large periods as Valbuena pulled all the strings against a lacklustre Nancy side. Marseille will now be looking to make it 6 wins from 6 next weekend - the last time that happened was when Elie Baup was in charge of Bordeaux. Bordeaux went on to win the league in that same year, so the omens are good for the l’OM.

J. Ayew grabs the winner

Lyon, PSG, Lorient and Bordeaux remain unbeaten

Marseille aren’t the only team to have made an impressive start to the campaign. Lyon have dropped just two points this season, as they ran out comfortable winners at home to Ajaccio. Bordeaux extended their unbeaten run to 13 games as they earned a hard-fought point away at Valenciennes. But 4 draws from 5 may be slight cause for concern for les Girondins. The PSG machine looks like it has slowly rolled into motion as they produced another impressive performance to beat Toulouse 2-0 - Ibrahimovic making it 5 goals from 3 games....the least said about that the better. Lorient have been the big surprise so far this season and they moved up to third place with a 2-1 win away Rennes in an ill-tempered Breton derby that saw three red cards. But what a player they have in Alain Traoré, he now has four goals for the season, and the two he scored this weekend were world class....okay maybe not world class, but check them out below, they ain’t half bad..

Traoré with two stunning strikes

Shocks of the weekend

I’m not sure if we can include Montpellier dropping points as a shock anymore, as they’ve only one win to their name all season. Despite their poor start you would still expect the defending champions to have got something from a game against newly promoted Reims..but no they were comprehensively beaten by a stylish Reims side. I maintain that Herrera is dreadful and after Arsenal’s 6-1 demolition of Southampton I really do fear for Montpellier in their Champions League opener against the gunners. But probably the biggest shock of the weekend was St. Etienne’s home defeat to Sochaux. Before the weekend Sochaux had failed to pick up points in all of their previous 4 fixtures and this game looked a formality on paper. But a combination of some heroic goal keeping and St. Etienne being forced to play 80 minutes of football with 10 men helped the Peugeot based club to scrape their first points of the season.

Pouplin was the hero for Sochaux

Elsewhere Lille dropped more points as they were held 1-1 at new boys Troyes and Nice continued their quiet rise up the table with a 4-2 win over Brest. And finally new Evian coach Pascal Dupraz got off to a winning start with a 3-0 win at home to Bastia

Week 5