Ligue 1 SRL Round-Up | Olympique Marseille suffer shock loss, Strasbourg win big and more

05/20/2020

An exciting matchday saw the French top tier produce not one but three action-packed games with seven goals scored by the end of the day. The shocker was the fact that second placed side Olympique Marseille suffered a shock loss to mid-table Stade Brestois with Strasbourg and Amiens gaining points.

Amiens SC 1-1 Stade Rennais

It was supposed to be a boring one sided clash with Stade Rennais walking out with all three points but is never that simple. Instead despite the hosts walking in with a four game winless record, they still managed to put up an impressive fight against shot shy Rennais. The away side managed just three shots on goal in that first 45 with Amiens managing a surprising seven. They even managed to put four of those seven on target but still despite that neither side managed to find the net.

Things changed slightly in the second half although Amiens did dominate the opening period and even took the lead in the 52nd minute. That lit a fire under Stade Rennais and changed their tone for the rest of the half although it took them some time to get running. Once they did, however, it changed the game but the hosts were happy to sit back and defend. That proved to be the wrong move as Rennais equalised in the 89th minute which left Amiens too little time to change anything.

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Stade Brestois 2-0 Olympique Marseille

It was supposed to be Olympique Marseille’s game to lose but with the hosts’ place in the Champions League and their number two spot secured, they took things easy. Nothing proved that as much as the first half did with them taking only four shots on goal. Not only that, their defensive efforts were less than perfect which allowed Stade Brestois to score twice in eight minutes from just four shots on goal.

That effectively changed the game but the hosts stood firm to end the first half ahead and even tried to add to their advantage before the first half break. The restart did see Marseille put up a much better show but even then, it wasn’t their greatest performance as they failed to test their hosts. In the end, despite creating 62 dangerous attacks at an average of 14 seconds per move with ten shots on goal (6 on target) Marseille had to settle for another loss.

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RC Strasbourg Alsace 3-0 Angers SCO

In the end, Strasbourg proved to be far too tough for Angers to handle with the hosts using their back-to-back wins to help surge them forward. It proved to be the main difference between the two sides as Les Scoïstes walked into the clash with a less than perfect record (1W 1D 2L) in their last four games. The first half showed that rather brilliantly as the hosts took five shots in the opening 13 minutes although they failed to find the net. That would change mid-way through the first half and Angers had no reply to the 24th minute goal.

Instead, while the away side did manage to take eight shots on goal in the opening 45, their profligacy hurt them and effectively changed the course of the second half. It saw Strasbourg burst out of the gates with a goal in the 52nd minute before doubling their lead twenty minutes later. That effectively marked an end to any fightback that Les Scoïstes had planned with the hosts failing to have a shot on goal in the final nine odd minutes of the game. The statistics proved that Angers simply weren't at the races with just 35 dangerous attacks to Strasbourg's 66 and 11 shots on goal to their hosts' 20.

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