League Focus: Can Anybody Stop Lille Finishing Third in Ligue 1?
Having began Sunday evening knowing a win would take them into second place in Ligue 1, Lille had the opportunity to build further on a stunning first half of the campaign in which they garnered 40 points - a pre-Christmas record for a third-placed team. In the end, the surprise home defeat to an undeniably doughty Reims side reminded us that René Girard's team have been overachieving.
Victory over Reims would have stretched the gap between Lille and fourth-placed Saint-Etienne to 9 points, with Monaco a further point back. The six-point gap that Les Dogues hold over Les Verts today is most welcome, but it is small enough that Christophe Galtier's side - or maybe someone else - could still steal the coveted third Champions League spot, if we assume that Paris Saint-Germain and Monaco will occupy the first two places.
So can Lille hold on? Right-back Franck Beria's shoulder injury has partly exposed a lack of depth - Sochaux's Sébastien Corchia has been mooted as a potential purchase to augment their defensive options - but one senses that Vincent Enyeama's heroics have covered a few underperforming elements of the current group.
Nolan Roux and Salomon Kalou both have 6 goals each and without them, the cupboard is very bare indeed. Goalscoring is clearly a difficulty - in the top half of the table only Toulouse have scored less - and they sometimes struggle to create chances, especially away from home where they've had only 20 shots in their last three trips out.
Marvin Martin has some work to do in order to really win the confidence of Girard. He has 2 assists to date but to put this into perspective, centre-back Marko Basa has managed just as many. The 26-year-old is a long way from his 2010/11 form with Sochaux which earned him a France call-up; in that season, he scored 3 but provided 19 assists. One alternative, Ronny Rodelin, has failed to really impose himself either. He has, though, scored 2 of the meagre 4 goals provided by Lille's midfield.
Saint Etienne, whose draw at the Stade Pierre Mauroy on the final day of last season denied Lille fourth place, are a real possibility to challenge them for third this time. They were never going to have the means to replace Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang with a forward of equal quality - with all due respect to the merits of Mevlut Erding - but Galtier has got other sources to chip in.
The most notable is Romain Hamouma, the wide man who has scored 7 times already this season. He has also contributed 4 assists and lays on an impressive 1.6 key passes per game, as well as completing an average 1.1 dribbles. Perhaps his extraordinary form has overshadowed the need for a goalscorer. That was apparent at Guingamp on Saturday, when Sainté had 59% of possession but only 4 shots on target.
Marseille have no concerns on that score. André-Pierre Gignac's excellent run continued with Sunday's winner at Evian taking his tally to 6 in the last 5 games in all competitions. The return of Mathieu Valbuena after a month out is a big plus, and he will hopefully be refreshed after labouring earlier in winter - not least to relieve the workload on young Florian Thauvin.
The 20-year-old was arguably Marseille's key signing this season and has scored 5 and given 3 assists so far in just 13 starts. Still, a peripatetic pre-season on the back of the Under-20 World Cup campaign with France may yet catch up with him.
Their defence was the cornerstone of last season's successes - OM won 12 games by a 1-0 scoreline last term - but is not so reliable this time around. They were lucky to get away with conceding just once on Sunday, as Evian had 14 shots but were foiled by their own profligacy.
Surprise package Nantes are candidates too, even if it's a long shot. Top scorer Filip Djordjevic's weekend confirmation that he will stay at the club until summer, running down his contract before leaving La Beaujoire for free, may mean the club losing out on a couple of million euros from selling him in this window, but it is a big lift to his team's prospects in the short-term. Although the last of the Serbia international's 8 goals came in November, he is a creator too. The latest of his 4 assists led to Ismael Bangoura's late winner against Lorient on Sunday. It also meant Djordjevic has been directly responsible for exactly 50% of his side's Ligue 1 goals this season.
Bangoura's goal was the Guinean's first for Nantes since May 2012 and coach Michel Der Zakarian needs him and Fernando Aristeguieta to step up quickly. One of Nantes' key characteristics in their WhoScored profile is a consistent first XI, but they will inevitably have to mix and match to keep pace in the final strait.
Maybe even Reims themselves could pose a threat. Having lost only four games, they are not to be discounted. Yet the main strength of Hubert Fournier's side is counter-attacking, which has its limits in a competition of Ligue 1's relative circumspection. Reims' two key performers, goalkeeper Kossi Agassa and midfielder Grzegorz Krychowiak, are defensive players, despite the latter's winning goal at Lille.
Despite their stature as traditional heavyweights, Bordeaux and Lyon look unlikely to threaten third place. The former's coach, Francis Gillot, described his team's performance in Saturday's home defeat to Toulouse as "catastrophic", while the latter perhaps let their best chance of making up ground pass in the pre-Christmas period, when they let two-goal leads slip against Marseille and Lorient in successive weeks.
Saint-Etienne welcome Lille to the Stade Geoffroy Guichard on Friday, with an excellent opportunity to close the current six-point gap. A Champions League place is still Lille's to lose, but the first weekend of Ligue 1 after the resumption has offered a glimmer of hope to those with the aim of developing a real battle for third.
Who will win the race for the third Champions League spot in Ligue 1? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below
