Domestic league football returns across Europe this weekend and the pre-cursor to the French Ligue 1 action this weekend is this Friday night clash between basement dwellers, Dijon, and the early pace-setters, Rennes, when the two teams face off at the Stade Gaston-Gérard.
It’s been a disastrous start to the new Ligue 1 campaign for the hosts, Dijon, as they’ve managed to pick up just one point from their first six matches of this new season, losing five of these six matches which has left them bottom of the pile.
A 2-2 draw at home with Montpellier has been their only respite from an early flurry of defeats as Dijon have lurched to losses against Angers, Lyon, Brest, Strasbourg and Bordeaux, and although they’re on home turf this Friday evening, their situation could worsen as they host the early league leaders, Rennes.
Dijon’s current predicament is in stark contrast to how they finished last season’s campaign as the hosts had put together a 12-match unbeaten sequence which had effectively steered them to safety away from the relegation zone, but recent results have been very disappointing.
Onto Rennes, and as mentioned earlier, the visitors sit top of Ligue 1 heading into this Friday night encounter as they still remain unbeaten after the opening six matches of this new French domestic top flight season.
Four wins and two draws have lifted Rennes into the early leading pack and unlike Dijon, they’ve picked up where they left off at the end of last term and have continues their impressive sequence of results.
Rennes finished last season with three wins on the trot against Nimes, Toulouse and Montpellier, while this season they’ve already chalked up victories over Montpellier, Nimes, Monaco and Saint-Etienne along with picking up useful points in draws with Lille and Reims.
Together with the tail-end of last season’s results, that’s now nine matches without defeat for Rennes and having lost just twice out of their last 10 matches on their travels in Ligue 1, the visitors look a force to be reckoned with here.
However, for Rennes to win this clash they’ll have to break the recent sequence of the last four winners of this encounter which have been won by the home team, but Rennes are in decent form right now and look the most likely to walk away with the points here.