St Etienne – Strasbourg SOCCER PICKS
AS Saint-Étienne and RC Strasbourg both went against a lower classified opponent last weekend and fell from the top five of the standings. Which of both teams knows again and place one in the top five to conquer?
AS Saint-Étienne:
On visiting Stade Rennais an attacking powerless AS Saint-Étienne went down by no less than 3-0. Until the final stage, Jean-Louis Gasset’s team kept a chance at one point, but by two goals in the last five minutes and a red card for Romain Hamouma, the game for Les Verts ended in a minor. Due to the sixth defeat of the season and already the fifth loss in an away game this season, Les Verts are now four games without a win and the gap in third place, now occupied by arch trival Olympique Lyonnais, can reach nine points.
The defense of Les Verts seems to be pretty much like a cheese with no less than thirteen opponents in the last five matches. Six of these were cashed in in the eighth finals of the Coupe de France, making the goal balance of AS Saint-Étienne in the Ligue 1 barely positive with +4 (33-29), but there is still work at the store for Gasset. In away games, the goal difference is this season -9 (11-20) and in addition only two of the twelve games were held at zero, so it is now up to Les Verts to have confidence in home games. An encouraging statistic is that in the home this season in eleven games was only lost by archrival Olympique Lyonnais and only Stade Rennais and Amiens managed to win a point.
RC Strasbourg:
RC Strasbourg was on a very strong set of eight victories in all competitions in the last nine games and only one defeat against Paris Saint-Germain in the eighth finals of the Coupe de France. In the own La Meinau Le Racing started strong against Angers, but the field overbalance was not converted in the first half. After the break, Angers faced the 2-0 lead, after which RC Strasbourg went no further than the tying goal by Sanjin Prcic, who scored immediately on his debut for Le Racing. The lead on the number eleven, Nîmes Olympique, has now shrunk to two points, but Le Racing still has this makeover against AS Saint-Étienne.
Goalkeeper Matz Sels only had to catch the goal from the net twice in seven of the 23 duels in the Ligue 1 this season, but also only cleaned his goal five times. RC Strasbourg nevertheless belongs to the top eight teams in terms of the number of goals scored this season and in terms of the number of goals scored only two teams perform better this season (PSG and Olympique Lyonnais). Nevertheless, Le Racing is “only eighth”. A defeat against AS Saint-Étienne has no negative consequences in the ranking, but in a victory the team from Strasbourg can temporarily come fourth.
