Marseille have made an excellent start to their new Ligue 1 campaign as the hosts have won their first two matches of the new term on the trot, and even more impressive is the fact that both of these wins were collected away from home.
An opening 3-2 win at Brest was followed by an even more encouraging 1-0 win at last season’s Ligue 1 champions, PSG, and Marseille now return to the more familiar surroundings of their Orange Vélodrome for this upcoming clash against Saint-Etienne on Thursday evening.
Marseille finished last season in the runners-up position behind the runaway Ligue 1 champions, PSG, who held a commanding 12-point lead at the top before the lockdown was enforced, but Marseille had produced a solid sequence of results beforehand, losing just one of their final 17 matches of the season.
12 of these 17 matches resulted in victories for Marseille while at home, the hosts lost just one of their last 13 matches before the season was brought to a halt; this included a 1-0 win over Thursday night’s opponents, Saint-Etienne, whom Marseille have beaten in the previous three meetings on the trot.
Onto Saint-Etienne then, and the visitors have also made an explosive start to their respective Ligue 1 campaign as they’ve registered early back-to-back wins against Lorient and Strasbourg, both by 2-0 margins.
However, it should be noted that both of these victories were achieved on home turf at their Stade Geoffroy-Guichard, while results towards the end of last season were far from convincing with Saint-Etienne winning just two of their final 15 matches of the campaign.
Again, both of these wins were recorded at home against Nice and Nimes respectively, while the visitors really came undone on their travels towards the end of last season as Saint-Etienne lost their last seven away matches on the trot.
Saint-Etienne conceded a total of 16 goals and managed to score just 6 in reply during this miserable losing streak on the road and it’ll be interesting to see how they fare when they travel to Marseille on Thursday night as this will be their first away match of this new Ligue 1 season.
Il y a 2️⃣ ans, l'OM s'imposait 4-0 contre @EAGuingamp avec deux magnifiques réalisations signées @dimpayet17 & et @FlorianThauvin 🚀🤩#OMEAG #DroitAuBut pic.twitter.com/yiINrwurFz— Olympique de Marseille (@OM_Officiel) September 16, 2020
Il y a 2️⃣ ans, l'OM s'imposait 4-0 contre @EAGuingamp avec deux magnifiques réalisations signées @dimpayet17 & et @FlorianThauvin 🚀🤩#OMEAG #DroitAuBut pic.twitter.com/yiINrwurFz
Marseille therefore look the more likely to pick up the three points here, especially as they hold home advantage.