LYON vs. MARSEILLE

By: John | November 8th, 2009

lomandloly
November 8, 2009
Stade de Gerland, Lyon
4:00 EST (21:00CET, 20:00GMT)

Sunday evening it’s back to work. But hopefully, it’s not one of those usual Monday morning, sloping, sluggish, I need a liter of coffee to get through the day, back to works, because aside from the heart wrenching matches against Cesspool in the CL, Lyon have been afflicted with a general malaise probably since week eight in the PSG match, and need this victory to put some pep back in their step.

Lyon have had a near perfect run in the CL so far, but our league form as of late, leaves alot to be desired. Aside from some bright spots in victories against Toulouse and Lens, OL have been downright somnambulant, pretty much in their last three league matches if not more, seemingly sleepwalking through the league and waking up with some nasty injuries along the way- Sochaux and Nice in particular, inflicting some deep bruises.

FBL-FRA-L1-LYON-MARSEILLE
No hand-holding this week: That led to a 0-0 draw last time!

Sunday, Marseille come to Gerland, fresh off their midweek 6-1 trouncing of FC Zurich in the CL. Despite this sucess, they are pretty much done in the CL, needing two sucessive vitories against two giants of the football world, Real Madrid and AC Milan, in order to progress to the round of sixteen. So in other words, their attention should be fully turned back to and honed on league success.

For me, this is the team that OL can’t lose to. I don’t care so much about the Derby or Bordeaux, but L’OM can’t be allowed a victory. I think it’s Ben Arfa that’s caused a viceral hatred in me for L’OM…I dunno.

Regardless, both teams have been rather flat in league play lately, and this match may be pivotal in the sense that it may jolt one of them back on track: Lyon are just two points off of league-leaders Bordeaux, while Marseille are seven points off the lead, and look to keep from slipping any further in the table.

HISTORY: Sunday’s clash at Gerland will be the 39th affair between the two clubs. In those meetings, OL holds the advantage with a 16-17-6 record. Apart from Les Marseillais’ last victories in November of 2007 and April of 2004, you would have to go back twelve years to find the last OM victory. Aside from a few exeptions, the matches between these two are generally low scoring affairs and decided by a point or less.

Marseille’s Form: After a summer filled with big signings of talented players- which assured them tons of depth at every position- and the acquisition of coach Didier Deschamps, L’OM had put fear into most of the top teams in L1, but halfway through the season, Marseille suprisingly sit in eight place in the tables. They are 5-3-2 with (19) points, that’s eight from the top, but do have a one point goal differential lead on OL with (+7). Their anihilation of Zurich aside, L’OM have been had a similar run to OL, with two wins in their last five matches.

Les Phoceens have the fourth ranked offense with (17) scored- tied with Lyon- and are also ranked fourth in defense with (10) goals allowed. For today’s purposes, OM are ranked 3rd away from home- right behind L’OL- with a 3-1-1 record on the road. Lyon are ranked 5th at home with a 4-0-1 record.

Offensively, Mamadou Niang (6) and Brandão with (4) league goals are their danger men.

Again, despite a slew of summer signings, L’OM’s achilles heal continues to be the defensive line. The front of goal seems to be an open highway to opposing teams as of late, as Deschamps struggles to find the right defensive combination. Seven of the last ten goals allowed have come in the last five matches.

Injuries: Cleber and Bodmer; while Clerc and Reveillere are out with knee injuires, leaving the toddler Lamine Gassama to possibly be molested by that bad man Mamadou Niang, probably a repeat-in-the-waiting of what happened to the poor boy in the CL, when he was mauled by Franck Ribery.

The other kiddies, Faure and Seguin are still out, leaving Toulalan to play through his groin injury.

Some great news: Boumsong is finally fit, and will join the squad. This is fantastic news, although he’s weeks away from getting-up to speed, because I was starting to worry that Puel might have to start putting Makoun, Kallstrom or some of the fowards in the CB role during practice. It looked like it might be coming to that; maybe Lisandro back there before they decided to buy a CB on the medical joker option, or switching to a 3-5-2.

As aformentioned, Toulalan is a having some slight groin problems but will start. Gomis sustained a slight knock during the week against Loserpool and is questionable but still in the squad, same goes for Pjanic who also took a knock vs. Cesspool and experienced some muscular soreness during the week, but is also included in the group.

Le groupe lyonnais : Lloris, Vercoutre, Cris, Gassama, Cissokho, Boumsong, Kolodziejczak, Toulalan, Gonalons, Makoun, Källström, Pjanic, Bastos, Delgado, Ederson, Govou, Tafer, Belfodil, Gomis, Lisandro.

Formation:

Lloris
Gassama-Cris -Toulalan-Cissokho
Ederson-Makoun-Kallstrom
Bastos-Lisandro-Govou

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