St Etienne are in grave danger of being cast adrift at the bottom of the French Ligue 1 as Saturday afternoon’s hosts to Lens currently sit bottom of the division and five points behind fourth from bottom Bordeaux and safety prior to this weekend’s fixtures.
St Etienne’s plight certainly hasn’t been helped by the fact that the hosts have lost their last five games on the trot in the domestic top flight, suffering losses against PSG, Brest, Rennes, Reims and Nantes respectively.
🟡⚔️🟢 pic.twitter.com/GBDtptr7Bz— AS Saint-Étienne (@ASSEofficiel) January 11, 2022
🟡⚔️🟢 pic.twitter.com/GBDtptr7Bz
Although they hold supposed home advantage at their Stade Geoffroy-Guichard for this upcoming encounter, this still looks a tough fixture for St Etienne as the hosts have managed to pick up just two wins throughout the whole of this season’s Ligue 1 campaign to date.
Those two rare wins came in the form of victories over Clermont and Troyes, both of whom currently occupy places in the bottom half of Ligue 1, while the bigger picture shows that St Etienne have won just one of their last 11 matches at their Stade Geoffroy-Guichard.
Lens registered a welcome 1-0 home win against 4th placed Rennes on the weekend which not only ended Lens’s six-match stretch without a win in Ligue 1 but it also helped the visitors up into 6th place and within a point of Montpellier and Rennes in the top five pack as well.
Lens had previously lost three and drawn three of their preceding six matches, losing to Brest, Nantes and Nice and picking up points in draws with Angers, Clermont and PSG while results away from home have also taken a turn for the worse.
The visitors have lost five of their last six games on their travels so the prospects of a straight away win here does seem slim at best.
But Lens do hold an encouraging head-to-head record against St Etienne in recent exchanges and this may be enough for Lens to at least avoid defeat in this Saturday’s afternoon clash at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard.
Lens are unbeaten in the last three meetings against St Etienne and the visitors have also won two of these three encounters with a 2-0 home win before recording a 3-2 win away from home, so they look the more likely to grab the three points here this Saturday.