Ligue 1 SRL Round-Up | PSG, Stade Rennais register wins, Nice and Nantes play out goalless draw
Paris Saint Germain maintained their gap at the top and won all three points against a jubilant Stade Brestois in a match which was dominated equally by both the teams. Stade Reannais cruised pat helpless Angers while Nice and Nantes played out an eventful goalless draw that summed up the weekend.
Angers 0 - 2 Stade Rennais
Stade Rennais remained glued to the third position in the league table with a 2-0 over Angers in the Sunday kick-off. There was nothing eventful in the first forty-five minutes of the match, apart from three shots kept on target, 2 by Angers. In spite of such dull statistics, the hosts surprisingly spent more time in dangerous tattacks in the first half of the game and were undoubtedly the happier team at the break.
The hardly-fought match left us nothing to separate between the two teams, till Stade Rennais scored the opener in the 78th minute. It was preceded by a spell which did not produce much apart from a shot on target, that too by Angers. Stade Rennais sealed the game by scoring the second goal a couple of minutes later, which shattered the hosts' fortune in the game. Stade Rennais spent 20 seconds per attack on average while the home team clocked 14 seconds for the same. Surprisingly, Angers registered 58 dangerous attacks, 13 more than the winners.
Nice 0 - 0 Nantes
Nice and Nantes played out a 0-0 draw in what was a lacklustre display from both the sides. As expected, the game was pretty much an even contest with both the teams coming into the game with two wins from their last five matches. Nice was by far the better side in the first period, having taken 8 shots on goal and keeping 3 of them on target, but none of them beat the goalkeeper.
There was nothing to talk about the second half either with the goalkeepers not tested at either end. Nice did manage to stitch up a few lethal moves in the closing stages of the game, but Nantes averted danger and kept the scores in act to steal 1 one point from the away fixture. For the records, Nice took 14 shots at the goal and kept half of them on target, while the visitors accounted for 10 shots out of which 1 found the target.
PSG 1 - 0 Stade Brestois
Paris Saint Germain narrowly edged past a spirited Stade Brestois in the Sunday evening kick-off. Surprisingly, there was not much to differentiate between the 1st and the 17th placed team in the opening 45 minutes of the game. In fact, Stade Brestois had taken 4 shots at the goal in the same time frame, while two of them were on target. In spite of such efforts, the scores were unhurt at the halfway mark.
The second half was as evenly poised as the first one, with both the teams stitching up attacks that became subdued once it approached the business end. But normalcy prevailed when Paris Saint Germain took the lead in the 69th minute, following which it was expected that they would wrap up the game. But the visitors kept on the pressure until the very end, only to see PSG maintain their slender lead and register full points. Overall, PSG accounted for 60 dangerous attacks, 5 more than Stade Brestois, while the winners spent around 15 seconds per attack on average which is slightly better than what the visitors managed (14).
