PARIS —
Lionel Messi struck after five minutes as
Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) edged Lyon 1–0 to regain top spot in the Ligue 1
table ahead of Marseille on Sunday.
اضافة اعلان
Neymar set up
the Argentinian with his seventh assist in eight Ligue 1 games.
The victory
pulled PSG two points clear of Marseille who had taken top spot earlier with a
1–1 draw at home against Rennes.
Lorient, 3–1
winners over Auxerre, are three points adrift of the leaders.
Lens dropped to
fourth after being held to a goalless draw in Nantes.
“PSG played a
great game tonight, against a difficult team, which was waiting for us,” said
PSG coach Christophe Galtier.
“We scored a
good goal and could have scored others.”
“We were much
more balanced, Neymar in particular gave us a balance which was really
necessary. Even if we were less mobile in the second half we still had a lot of
chances.”
PSG were
imperious in the first half but did not finish off their opponent who woke up
after the break with Johann Lepenant coming on in place of a tired Corentin
Tolisso.
But Galtier’s
side held on to inflict Lyon’s third defeat of the season.
Galtier’s “MNM”
attack is firing on all cylinders, with eight goals in Ligue 1 for Neymar,
seven for Kylian Mbappe and four for Messi.
Earlier,
Marseille midfielder
Matteo Guendouzi scored both goals in a 1-1 draw at home
against Rennes.
Guendouzi
bundled past home keeper Pau Lopez to give Rennes the advantage after 26
minutes but the former Arsenal player redeemed himself with a header past
ex-Marseille goalkeeper Steve Mandanda seven minutes after the break.
Mandanda
returned to a warm welcome for his first match back at the Velodrome where the
former Marseille skipper spent 15 years before leaving for Brittany in the
summer.
“He was very
good, very calm, while it was very difficult for him emotionally,” said Rennes
coach Bruno Genesio of Mandanda who holds the record for the number of games
played for Marseille with 613.
Nice fell 1–0 at
home against Angers in a match in which defender Jean-Clair Todibo earned a red
card after five seconds and both teams finished with 10 men.
Todibo was sent
off after just nine seconds, and that includes the four seconds it took referee
Bastien Dechepy to pull the card out of his pocket.
Sofiane Boufal
kicked off for Angers and passed to Adrien Hunou. He found striker Abdallah
Sima surging forward. Sima pushed the ball past Todibo who stuck out a leg and
tripped the striker.
After a video
review, the decision that Todibo was the last defender stood.
Even though
Boufal was later sent off, Angers won 1–0 with Nabil Bentaleb scoring just
before the break.
“I don’t think
it was a red card,” said Nice coach Lucien Favre saying Dante and Jordan
Lotomba were covering. “It was not a scoring opportunity.
“We would have won this
game if we had played with eleven players.”
Read More Sports
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
