It’s a cliché, but football thrives on them, so why not start with one? If you can’t beat them, join them. Like most clichés, it doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny. What happens if the best way of joining them is by beating them? I don’t know, but Saint-Etienne certainly do after the weekend closed with them perched on top of Ligue 1 for the second week in a row.
Last week, Saint-Etienne coach Christophe Galtier was quick to dampen any chances of his side getting carried away with their stellar start, preferring instead to put his side’s 3-0 romp over Montpellier down as nothing more than three points towards safety. But he has no such chance this week, not after his side pulled off their first away victory at Lyon in seventeen years to dump their bitterest rivals into the relegation quicksand and retake top spot from Rennes.
There is a parallel to this result, and it happened last weekend at the City of Manchester Stadium. There, the nouveaux riche Chelsea were beaten by the nouveaux richer Manchester City to lob in their stake as genuine title contenders. City are themselves cast in the same mould as ASSE: last excellent in the 1970’s, they’ve watched in frustration while their near neighbours got on with winning pots aplenty. They’ve suffered humiliating relegations and have had the monopoly on long-suffering, fanatical fandom. The two cities are probably twinned. But like it as not, both teams came away with one-goal victories which have made both sets of fans start to believe yet again.
Saint-Etienne’s win over Lyon at the Stade Gerland was a triumph of attrition rather than inspiration. Lyon dominated the majority of the play, having shots from Jeremy Toulalan and Jimmy Briand cleared off the line, a Bafetimbi Gomis header make a dent in the post and further shots from Toulalan and Briand beating the keeper but not the woodwork. Gomis saw a goal chalked off for offside before, wouldn’t you know it, Saint-Etienne got the winner after a rare foray into Lyon territory.
The winner came courtesy of Dimitri Payet, current top scorer in Ligue 1 and the man who would be the next big thing, had he not already stopped being that a couple of years ago. He’s in sensational form, and it’s no surprise it was he who stepped up to take the free kick from thirty yards after Dejan Lovren’s inexplicably-punished tackle. The man with the golden boot smacked the ball past Hugo Lloris and gave Lyon’s fans an unwelcome present – turning them green with envy to match their hated rival’s colours.
Continuing with the theme of Premier League inspiration, we have to sink to the lowest depths of the league and Arles-Avignon. They don’t have even a passing resemblance to Everton, being as they are a tiny speck in the football firmament with a ground made chiefly of Subbuteo furniture, but they share one thing: neither of them can buy a win. This weekend the whipping boys played a lot better than their 3-1 defeat at Montpellier suggested, but sooner or later they’ll have to admit the inevitable: start winning or get relegated.
For Liverpool, read Auxerre. Both managed 2-2 draws on Saturday but where the Reds got a helping hand from the ref, Auxerre should have needed no such assistance. It took them sixty seconds to take the lead at home to Nancy when Dennis Oliech powered his way through the defence and buried the ball, and ten minutes later the same player did the same thing to give them a two goal cushion. But Auxerre are more brittle than a block of cinder toffee, and before half-time they’d allowed Nancy to help themselves to two goals, which came as no help for Auxerre as they geared up to face Real Madrid in midweek.
The current champions Marseille are sailing up the table (there’s no parallel I’m afraid; Chelsea are doing me no favours by being superb) and it was the wind that carried them to sixth as they showed their dominance over surprise-package Sochaux. They took the lead thanks to a superb/lucky cross-cum-shot by Taye Taiwo from the dead-ball line that floated over Mathieu Dreyer. The rest of the game was much of a muchness, with Marseille scoring again through Lucho Gonzalez and then conceding late on.
Like England, the early Ligue 1 is becoming stodgy in the middle. After some early goalfests, this weekend saw some faintly dull wins and little incident. The action came at the extremes of the table, and with no result to match the euphoria of Saint-Etienne’s win, we’re left to pick over what excitement there was.
Lens are still waiting to add to their solitary win after a horrorshow against PSG. The Parisians took the lead through comedy means when a nothing cross was cleared against Yohan Demont which looped up over his keeper into the roof of the net. Right on the final whistle, Nene chipped Vedran Runje from the left hand side of the area to send PSG back to the capital in fifth place.
Rennes put their League Cup exit to Guingamp behind them to win 2-1 away in pretty Nice, which was pretty nice. Brest lucked out against Valenciennes, coming away with a 1-0 despite conceding a penalty which was retaken and subsequently missed. Toulouse sleepwalked through a dull 1-1 at home to Lille (both goals coming at the same end and looking identical), Lorient giving themselves a scare by gifting Monaco an equaliser before going on to win 2-1, and Bordeaux are still trying to find third gear and could only manage a 0-0 away at Caen.
So not a lot to learn this week, other than clichés don’t always ring true. They say it’s easy to get to the top but the real problem is staying there. Saint-Etienne don’t seem to be having too much trouble doing either.