Paris Saint-Germain return to home motion with a visit up north to play fourth-positioned Lille on Sunday, days after nail-bitingly securing Champions League progress.
Luis Enrique and his expenses now face a stern check towards the 2020-21 Ligue 1 champions following Wednesday’s 1-1 attract Dortmund, which booked their spot within the knockout phases of Europe’s prime membership competitors.
With their season virtually hanging within the stability heading into the conflict away to Borussia Dortmund, PSG should shortly flip their attentions again to the nitty-gritty of league soccer as they search to win a 3rd straight championship.
The guests sit prime of the desk on 36 factors, 4 forward of Nice in second and 9 forward of this weekend’s opponents, and their type since final shedding in September has been imperious.
Lille, alternatively, have solely two wins of their final 5 outings and simply two factors separate them from Brest, who head up the looking pack outdoors the Champions League qualification spots.
Warren Zaire-Emery, the scorer of PSG’s equaliser towards Dortmund, is prone to make his full return to league motion after harm and captain Kylian Mbappe may give himself the proper twenty fifth birthday current, three days early, by including to his 15 league targets this marketing campaign.
ALSO READ: ISL: Bengaluru FC Appoint Gerard Zaragoza as New Head Coach
A last check for Sage?
Following final weekend’s spectacular 3-0 victory towards struggling Toulouse, Lyon and their interim coach Pierre Sage face a frightening go to to 3rd-positioned Monaco on Friday.
(*16*) mentioned Sage in his pre-match convention.
“Toulouse were a good team. They wanted to play but we stopped them. In the match against Monaco, we’ll have to be good in all areas.”
A second consecutive victory and 44-yr-previous Sage would stake a powerful declare for making his place everlasting, one thing that will please the dressing room primarily based on Alexandre Lacazette and Maxence Caqueret’s put up-match interviews final week.
But Monaco come into the match seeking to make it three wins in three and the third-positioned aspect nonetheless boast enviable firepower with Wissam Ben Yedder, Takumi Minamino and Folarin Balogun, regardless that 5-purpose Aleksandr Golovin is suspended.
“When you see the table… third against the last team in the league… we have to be careful about that… it’s not an easy game,” warned Monaco coach Adi Huetter.
Second-placed Nice will search to shut the hole on PSG to at least one level, no less than in a single day, after they go to Le Havre on Saturday and Marseille have the prospect to proceed their glorious latest type with a house recreation towards seventeenth-place Clermont on Sunday.
One to look at: Alexandre Lacazette
Lyon’s hat-trick hero final Sunday fired his aspect to a useful three factors within the relegation dogfight with simply their second win of the season.
Having now scored in 100 totally different Ligue 1 matches, all of which have been for Lyon, Lacazette will probably must make it 101 if his group are to have any likelihood of downing Monaco on Friday.
With six targets in 12 outings this time period, the Lyon captain’s pure goalscoring intuition was properly on show together with his finishes towards Toulouse and persevering with such type might be essential if the seven-occasions champions are to keep away from the drop.
Key stats
32 – Nice’s complete of 32 factors going into matchday 16 is the third most they’ve amassed in a Ligue 1 season after 15 video games, in line with Opta statisticians.
8 – PSG have gained their final eight league matches, which means they boast the most effective type in Europe’s prime 5 leagues.
Fixtures (occasions GMT)
Friday
Monaco v Lyon (2000)
Saturday
Le Havre v Nice (1600), Lens v Reims (2000)
Sunday
Nantes v Brest (1200), Lorient v Strasbourg, Metz v Montpellier, Toulouse v Rennes (all 1400), Marseille v Clermont (1605), Lille v Paris Saint-Germain (1945)
(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is printed from a syndicated information company feed – AFP)
