Football

Nantes plunges Montpellier a little more into the crisis, Angers sinks against Clermont, Reims and Toulouse held in check

January 15, 2023

Like every Sunday afternoon, we were entitled to the traditional Ligue 1 multiplex as part of the 19th day of the championship, with four important matches for the second part of the table, in particular the fight for maintenance since three teams were concerned: Angers , red lantern, and Montpellier, two points from the first relegated Strasbourg, respectively received Clermont and Nantes while Brest, 18th, moved on the lawn of Toulouse. The last meeting saw Reims and Nice oppose each other, glued to the classification (10th and 11th) to hope to find the top 10 at the end of this weekend.

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At Auguste-Delaune, the Champenois dominated the Aiglons at the start of the match through their serial scorer Balogun (1st), followed by Agbadou (31st) and Ito (36th). The Gym nevertheless took advantage of a few defensive errors from their opponents, without any real success in the last gesture (22nd, 45th). Digard’s men, dangerous in the second act thanks to Gaëtan Laborde, not precise enough (48th), thought they would get a penalty but the referee, helped by the VAR, gave nothing. Balogun (83rd) and Pépé (85th) answered each other in quick succession but lacked efficiency.

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Angers sinks, Toulouse stalls

Direction the Midi-Pyrénées and the Municipal Stadium, where Téfécé hosted the Stade Brestois. After their big victory at Auxerre in the middle of the week, the Violets were surprised by the Breton formation, which opened the scoring thanks to Steve Mounie, who deflected a shot on target in the box. We had to wait for the second half and the end of the hour to see the Moroccan Zakaria Aboukhlal put the two teams in a tie, for his 2nd goal in 2 matches. Montpellier, host of Nantes, sank a little more after their crushing defeat at home (3-0), the Canaries even benefiting from a double numerical superiority at the end of the game.

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Angers SCO, dead last in the standings, could not get out of their negative spiral and fell at home against Clermont. Elbasan Rashani first unlocked the mark before the break (40th) before Neto Borges doubled the lead in the wake of the return to the locker room. On a serve from Nabil Bentaleb, Sofiane Boufal reduced the gap for his second game after his return but did not avoid a fourth defeat in a row in the league, which relegated them to 5 points behind AJ Auxerre, penultimate, and 7 units from the first non-relegation Strasbourg.