For the second time in a row, OM lost at home. The Marseille club does not take advantage of this late match to catch up with the leading peloton.
For this late match of the ninth day, Olympique de Marseille hoped to revive after winning only one of their last seven matches, in all competitions. But everything went wrong for the Marseillais in this meeting against Lens.
The timorous Marseillais, the enterprising Lensois
From the start of the match, the Marseillais were dominated by the Lensois who obtained the first opportunity by Sotoca, from the fourth minute of play. This same Sotoca was taken in ex-extremis by Caleta-Car thus preventing the Lensois from presenting alone face in Mandanda (26th).
And as nothing is going in Marseille at the moment, Valentin Rongier went out just before the break for muscle discomfort and gave way to Mickaël Cuisance (44th).
On the return from the locker room, the domination was still Lensoise and it is quite logical that the Blood and Gold opened the scoring on the hour mark. Haidara overflowed on the left side and centered for Banza, who came to cut the path at the near post and place a head stung unstoppable at the bottom of the nets.
After this goal, André Villas-Boas changed his tune and made a triple change: Benedetto, Thauvin and Pape Gueye were replaced by Dimitri Payet, Nemanja Radonjic and Lucas Perrin (63rd). Two minutes later, AVB left Nagatomo to align an even more offensive OM with the entry into play of Saîf-Eddine Khaoui. Despite these many changes, OM were unable to reverse the trend and it was RC Lens which, after three games without a win, relaunched at the Vélodrome.
OM burns a joker
With this defeat, the second in a row at home after that against Nîmes, Olympique de Marseille performed a bad operation in the race for the Champions League. The Marseillais remain in sixth place in the championship with 32 points and even see the Racing Club de Lens come back a step behind them, seventh with 31 points.
Olympique de Marseille, which still has one match late, against OGC Nice, is 8 points behind Olympique Lyonnais, third in Ligue 1 and who occupies the last accessit for the Champions League.
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