Saturday brings us the opening weekend of the new French Ligue 1 season and features this upcoming clash between Clermont and PSG as the teams face off at the Stade Gabriel Montpied, with Clermont looking to avoid another relegation battle while PSG look to defend last season’s Ligue 1 title.
Clermont narrowly avoided the relegation play-off at the end of last season as they finished fourth from bottom and four points clear of third from bottom finishers, St Etienne.
🆒📽️Relive the training of our Parisians before the return of #Ligue1⚽️ #CF63PSG pic.twitter.com/Od9qzE23nV— Paris Saint-Germain (@PSG_English) August 3, 2022
🆒📽️Relive the training of our Parisians before the return of #Ligue1⚽️ #CF63PSG pic.twitter.com/Od9qzE23nV
But their precarious position wasn’t helped by the fact that the hosts had managed to pick up just two wins from their final 13 games of last term.
Victories over Troyes 1-0 away from home and a 2-1 home win against Montpellier were overshadowed by eight defeats within this period, one of which was a particularly heavy 6-1 thrashing on home soil to Saturday’s upcoming opponents, PSG.
In what was a difficult first ever season in Ligue 1 last season, Clermont also struggled to pick up wins on home soil, winning just twice in their last 14 games at their Stade Gabriel Montpied.
Onto PSG and normal service was resumed in last season’s Ligue 1 campaign which saw the Paris outfit claim another domestic top flight title and they did so with relative ease as they ended the season with a 15-point cushion over the runners-up, Marseille.
A total of 26 wins from their 38 games played last term underlined PSG’s dominance once again after losing out to Lille for the league title in the 2020/21 season.
And with a new coach in place in the shape of former Nice and Lille manager, Christophe Galtier, the visitors will be keen to get this new season off to a winning start.
Despite slip-ups against Nantes, Nice and Monaco between February and March, PSG clicked into gear when they hit the final straight where they put together an unbeaten run of nine matches that included six wins.
Moreover, PSG also re-discovered their goalscoring touch as the visitors plundered a total of 31 goals in the process (that’s a staggering average of 3.44 goals per game) and previous history suggests further goals are likely on Saturday evening.
In the previous two meetings, PSG have run out comfortable winners with 6-1 and 4-0 victories respectively and another victory looks to be on the cards here as well.