Olympique Lyonnais vs Olympique Marseille 05/10/20

5 October 2020

Groupama Stadium is the venue as Olympique Lyonnais welcome Olympique Marseille in a massive, heavyweight Ligue 1 clash.

Although their Matchday 1 clash against Dijon brought a commanding 4-1 triumph, the hosts have been struggling to find their footing since. Indeed, ‘Les Gones’ take the field after failing to pick up all three points in four consecutive Ligue 1 matches (D3, L1), netting under 1.5 goals in each. Curiously, slow-starting Lyon have conceded the opening goal (if any) in three of their opening five league matches but have managed to peg their rivals back on two of those occasions. Marseille appear to be the ideal candidate to help Rudi Garcia’s men to overcome this crisis, considering Lyon have avoided defeat in all of their previous 11 top-flight H2H meetings held at this venue (W6, D5), winning the last three.

Meanwhile, the visitors have gone from back-to-back league victories to three successive games without a win (D2, L1). A genuine lack of firepower in the final third has seen Marseille score one goal or less in four of their last Ligue 1 outings, with two of the three goals they scored during that four-game sequence arriving on or beyond the 85-minute mark. However, ‘Les Phocéens’ have been nothing short of outstanding away from home this calendar year, winning all but one of their seven top-flight trips (D1). Yet, Andre Villas-Boas’ men tend to win tight when they do it on the road, as five of those six triumphs yielded a narrow one-goal margin.