In a few seconds, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) will hand over the position of leader of the standings forever to Olympique de Marseille, at the end of the 12th round.e league day. And then, Joao Neves appeared in 95e minutes to offer the Parisian club victory on the field of Olympique Lyonnais (OL), Sunday evening, November 9, and let it win (3-2) to return ahead of the short-lived leaders, winners on Saturday in Brest (3-0).
The Portuguese midfielder headed in a corner played from the left by Kang In-Lee while OL had just been reduced to ten men with the exception of Nicolas Tagliafico (90+3).
In the standings, PSG is two steps ahead of Marseille and Lens, while OL, who have not won in their last three league matches, is ranked 7th.e tied for points with Lille and Monaco.
Beaten on Tuesday in the Champions League by Bayern Munich (2-1), Luis Enrique’s men reacted quickly as they seem to be struggling in the league with three draws and three wins in their last six games in Ligue 1. Hurt by the absence of several starters (Hakimi, Nuno Mendes, Dembele for PSG, Sulc, Fofana for OL), both teams gave quite a dull start to the game before the game got carried away.
Lyon’s resilience alone is not enough
Overall, the chances of this encounter are quite poor despite the clear territorial dominance of the Parisian side who amassed 72% of the ball possession. Replaced by Achraf Hakimi, Warren Zaire-Emery opened the scoring with a powerful strike under the bar after capitalizing on a fine opening from Vitinha (1-0, 26e), which later became the forerunner to Paris’ second goal scored by Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (2-1, 33e).
Meanwhile, Afonso Moreira managed to equalize for OL after winning his duel with Lucas Chevalier following an opener from Moussa Niakhaté (1-1, 30e). The Portuguese youngster, who has been involved in five of Lyon’s last seven goals (3 goals, 2 assists), took full advantage of the playing time he got following the injury to Malick Fofana who was sidelined for several months.
Two minutes earlier, the video assistant had denied Lyon a penalty for an alleged hand attack by Paris defender Illya Zabarnyi. However, it was Lyon, who also scored through Tagliafico’s shot (42e), has shown resilience since this summer. They managed to equalize for the second time through Ainsley Maitland-Niles who scored his first goal of the season with a superb lob from Lucas Chevalier after being alerted in the middle by England’s Tyler Morton (2-2, 50e). A little gem that is not enough to make Lyonnais happy.
“We showed the right mentality to win this match”said Luis Enrique, coach of the Paris club at a press conference. “This is important because when it is difficult, we win and come first” Ligue 1, he added.
Strasbourg emphasized that Lille was disappointing
In the standings, behind the PSG-OM-Lens trio, Strasbourg is a serious candidate for the podium. The Alsatian team, on Sunday, can count on the incredible efficiency of Emanuel Emegha, the author of two goals, to make the difference in Meinau against Lille (2-0). A rousing return for the Alsatia captain who has not played for more than a month due to a hamstring injury in his right leg.
Lille (5e) on the other hand completely missed the match and even finished the game with ten men after Calvin Verdonk was knocked out in extra time. The northern leaders failed as did 2018 world champion Olivier Giroud who gifted Emegha’s second goal with a too-soft back pass.
For its part, Good (9e) continued to disappoint and suffered a fifth defeat, at promoted Metz (2-1). Major disaster in the Europa League (35e and penultimate), Aiglons had a bad start to the season and coach Franck Haise’s harsh words towards his players after the defeat against Friborg (3-1) on Thursday clearly did not have the desired effect. Messin out of the red zone (14e) and are in excellent dynamics as they have just achieved their third success in a row.
But the situation did not improve for Lorient (17e), who conceded a draw at Moustoir against Toulouse (1-1), and to Auxerre, who are in last place after their ninth defeat, at Angers (2-0). Enough to further weaken the Burgundian coach, Christophe Pélissier.
