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After another fantastic week of Ligue 1 football, week 11 of the French top division saw Monaco win 2-1 against Lyon, while we also saw PSG surprisingly drop points at St. Etienne. Here are the best stats from Ligue 1!
Ali Ahamada with a week to forget
Goalkeepers will always make mistakes, it happens, it’s part of football, but Toulouse goalkeeper Ali Ahamada will want to forget this weekend as quickly as possible. Saturday’s shocking 5-0 defeat to Rennes was helped in part by one of the worst goalkeeping performances you will ever see. Blunders are part of the game, but Ahamada enjoyed a season’s worth of gaffs in 90 minutes.Two goals were cause by simply mis-judging the flight of the ball. The third resulted in a goal from a Rennes free-kick after Ahamada handled the ball outside the box, the fourth came from a save that failed to clear the box, he tried to recover and ended up on the floor as Nelson Oliveira fired it into the net.
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However the former France U-21 keeper saved the best to last. Defender Aymen Abdennour looked to pass the ball back to the ‘keeper but Ahamada had rushed out of his goal to help, neither player knew what was going on and before they knew it the pass had gone past Ahamada and Oliveira had an empty net to put the ball into.
Just an absolutely baffling performance from the 22-year old, resulting in a Squawka performance score of minus 106 and will back up some feelings that he will never be the international goalkeeper that his early form had promised. Before this game he had only conceded 11 goals this season, now up to 16 but his average goal conceded rate is still down at 1.45. Compared to highly-rated Mexican Guillermo Ochoa at 1.36, it shows that Ahamada still has ability, a lot will depend on how he reacts to this performance.
Paris Saint-Germain unbeaten run extends to 30 games
With 30 minutes to go it looked like PSG would suffer their first defeat in 29 games. Not since the 1-0 defeat at Reims had the Parisians tasted defeat. Then Saint-Etienne’s Fabien Lemoine picked up his second yellow card and the home side were reduced to 10 men and the 2-0 lead they had worked hard to achieve was in trouble.
The inevitable happened and PSG came back, firing on all cylinders, first through Edinson Cavani with 20 minutes to go and then at the death former Sainte midfielder Blaise Matuidi got the equaliser. It will feel like a loss for the home side, but down to 10 men it was always going to be difficult, and PSG turned up the intensity with the one man advantage.
The stats before and after Lemoine’s 60th minute red card make for very interesting reading. With a full complement of players ASSE attempted 201 passes and had 7 shots on goal, this dropped to 58 passes and 2 shots after the red. They also only completed 45% of those passes compared to 73% before. It was PSG however that made the biggest change.
In the opening 60 minutes they attempted 343 passes and had 6 shots on goal, in the last 30 they tried 257 passes and 15 shots on goal. That’s an increase in passes per minute from 5.7 to 8.5 and from 1 shot up to five shots every ten minutes. Hard for Sainte to survive under that sort of constant pressure. Also a great example of PSG’s never-give-up attitude under Blanc that has emerged this season.
Five of the worse for Marseille
It may be in the south of France but at the Stade Velodrome it must feel like it never rains but it pours at the moment. With his job under pressure and the sounds of grumbling OM fans getting louder and louder, Elie Baup would have been expecting nothing but a win from his side on Saturday afternoon.
Then from being 2-0 down at home to Reims they battled back and Andre-Pierre Gignac’s 86th minute equaliser looked to have saved a point for the home side. Then Man of the Match Grzegorz Krychowiak found some space on a rare foray forward, his cross picked out Prince Oniangue perfectly and the midfielder steered his header perfectly past Steve Mandanda.
The 3-2 defeat makes it five defeats in a row for Marseille and they slide down to 7th place in the Ligue 1 table. It is their worst run since they lost 7 games in a row back in February 2012 when Didier Deschamps was in charge, it ultimately cost him his job. Baup will be feeling the pressure now.
Credit for OM’s latest defeat has to go to the provider of the 3rd goals and Man of the Match Krychowiak. One of Ligue 1’s most underrated players, he is the engine behind this Stade de Reims side, and whenever they play well you can guarantee the Polish midfielder will have enjoyed a good game. Saturday was no different – 6 tackles, 2 clearances, 3 interceptions and an 82% pass completion rate. His job is to protect the defence and not many do it better. How OM could do with a player of his quality right now.
Relegation favourites Guingamp up to 5th
The Ligue 1 table has been turned on its head and the three newly-promoted sides occupy the top five. Monaco of course is not surprise, but Guingamp were meant to have been cast adrift already, not challenging for Europe. Ever since their opening 3-1 demolition by Marseille they have really pulled together and put together an inspiring team ethic and superb work rate. There is no real star to the Guingamp side, Fatih Atik gained the highest Squawka rating on Saturday with rather low 36 points, emphasising the team mentality.
Their success has come in part from overloading teams in the wide positions and playing a patient passing game. They attempted 460 passes v Ajaccio in the 2-1 win, 76% of those passes found their target. 42 of those passes were labelled as crosses, more than most Ligue 1 sides manage. Six of those crosses were counted as key passes and the goals from Claudio Beauvue and Mustapha Diallo came from the wide areas. And with the team winning 10/14 aerial duels, they are causing a lot of problems from the channels.
The crisis in Monaco is over, Falcao scored Monaco’s 2nd goal in their 2-1 win over Lyon on Sunday, ending a three game run without a goal. That puts him on 8 goals so far for the season. The Colombian is having a strange season, at one moment you think he is struggling, the next he has lofted the ball beautifully over Anthony Lopes and all the fears are dashed. He only managed four shots against Lyon, taking his total to 25 for the season, 60% of his shots finding the target. Out of his four shots on Sunday, only a back post header that was well saved was close to doubling his tally.
For one of Europe’s most elite strikers you would expect El Tigre to be more involved in front of goal, and that is the scary part. With 8 goals under his belt in 11 games, Monaco still hasn’t quite worked out how to get the best out of Falcao. When they do the consequences could be devastating for the league. Interesting that he has had the exact same amount of shots as PSG’s Edinson Cavani, and the impression is that Cavani, playing out of position, has yet to settle. Ligue 1 could be in trouble if either forward hits their stride in the coming months.
