Ligue 1 round-up: Former Chelsea forward picks up from last season’s strong finish
Had you put money on which two teams would still have a 100 per cent record after three matches in Ligue 1, Paris Saint-Germain would be one of them but Dijon certainly would not have been the other. The former have won three in a row without needing to be at their best, while the latter have made a stunning start to the season, beating anything put in front of them. Olivier Dall’Oglio’s side followed up their shock triumph over Lyon with a thumping 4-0 win away to Nice this weekend.
Dijon finished midtable last season and only scored 20 league goals on the road in total and would have expected to compete with teams like Amiens for positions in the table this term. The latter, however, only picked up their first league win of the season on Saturday, albeit in some style. Christophe Pelissier’s side trashed newly-promoted Reims 4-1 at home to move out of the bottom three.
Reims were reduced to 10 men towards the end of the first half when only trailing 1-0 but that proved the turning point, as Amiens netted three more times after the interval before Reims scored a consolation goal. Moussa Konate scored Amiens’ last two goals, while also providing an assist to continue his good start to the campaign.
The 25-year-old, who has been linked to the Premier League in the past, has now played a direct hand in four goals in three league games this season and finished the weekend as the highest WhoScored rated player in Ligue 1 (9.72).
Lyon bounced back from their shock defeat to Dijon with a 2-0 win over Strasbourg on Friday night and Bertrand Traore, in particular, caught the eye. The former Chelsea striker enjoyed an immense second half of the season last term and has seemingly picked up from where he left off.
Traore rubber-stamped all three points for Lyon, finishing off a breathtaking counter-attack just after the hour mark to score his second in three matches. The 22-year-old had eight shots against Strasbourg, the joint-most in a Ligue 1 game this season. Not only that, but the youngster also created two goalscoring opportunities and completed two dribbles.
As mentioned earlier, Dijon have made a perfect start to the season but they owe much of their 4-0 win over Nice to super-sub Jules Keita, who blew Patrick Vieria’s side away in a stunning 24-minute cameo appearance. The 20-year-old only had 12 touches but scored twice and provided one assist to earn a WhoScored rating of 8.86, the third highest in Ligue 1 this weekend. He also completed two dribbles and was fouled twice during a mind-blowing performance.
While the aforementioned trio deserve huge praise for their performances this weekend, the same cannot be said for Marseille shot-stopper Yohann Pele, who garnered the lowest WhoScored rating in gameweek three (4.88). The 35-year-old, deputising for the injured Steve Mandanda, committed an error that led to Rennes second goal on the stroke of half-time. The veteran goalkeeper was eventually bailed out by his teammates, as Marseille came from 2-0 down for a share of the points.
