League Focus: Plethora of Strike Pairs Gives Way to Ligue 1 Goalrush
When Bordeaux and Nice were grinding their way to a goalless draw on Friday night, we couldn’t have imagined it. Ligue 1’s spectacular Saturday was an unexpected jolt of joy after a particularly inauspicious beginning to the weekend, with the aggregate haul of 23 from the five matches played the biggest from any Saturday of the season so far.
While runaway leaders Paris Saint-Germain’s flattening of lowly Reims at teatime was reasonably predictable, the evening’s fixtures were captivating fare. As we start to pick apart the reason behind this relative - if welcome - disorder, the various coaches involved probably deserve a pat on the back. By the end of Saturday, the seven matches had seen seven different teams go with two up front.
There is, of course, precedent for this in recent Ligue 1 history, with both Claudio Ranieri’s Monaco and Lyon under Rémi Garde - and, later, his successor Hubert Fournier - making a success of reviving 4-4-2. The plan worked well enough for Ranieri to reprise it on his return to the Premier League with Leicester, granting Riyad Mahrez a similar sort of licence to roam as he did to bring the best out of James Rodríguez in the Colombian’s single season at Stade Louis II.
It’s a peculiar twist, then, that the most surprising exponent of two up top this weekend was perhaps Monaco, a team largely known for coach Leonardo Jardim’s circumspection since he took over from the deposed Ranieri. The Principality club have gently improved in the final third this season. Having already scored 40 goals compared to the 51 they netted in Ligue 1 in last season as a whole, they’re going along at 1.48 per game as opposed to 1.3, but remain a cautious beast, typically set up in a 4-2-3-1 shape.
Ahead of Saturday’s reception of bottom club Troyes, though, the spectre of the first game between the pair hung heavy over proceedings. That goalless draw, in the final match before the winter break, was one of the lowest points of Monaco’s season. Much was made of Lacine Traoré’s missed penalty - Jardim was furious with the Ivorian striker for taking it on as he wasn’t the designated taker - but the reality was that the visitors landed just five shots on target against a side that was winless all season, and that played all but three minutes of the match with 10 men after Mouhamadou Dabo’s early red card.
So this time, with second place to be further cemented and rivals Saint Etienne and Lyon facing tough trips to Marseille and Lille, respectively, Jardim called on the cavalry. Guido Carrillo joined fellow South American and recent signing Vagner Love in a new front pairing. It did the trick, even if Love drew a blank, with Carrillo striking twice in the first half as Monaco landed 8 efforts on target from a mere 44% possession.
The Argentinian striker thus doubled his goal tally in Ligue 1 in the space of 37 minutes, and helped his team necessarily consolidate recent positive results against direct opposition, following on from a win over Nice - Monaco now have eight points more than Claude Puel’s third-placed side - and a draw at Saint Etienne. Carrillo, for one, was grateful for the switch, admitting after the match that he was happy playing in a two as he often had done back home. The 24-year-old managed four efforts at goal in total, which is far more active than his habitual 1.7 shots per game when playing up front alone, when his main role is reduced to winning headers (3.2 per match).
It also worked for young Kylian Mbappé-Lottin, who became the club’s youngest-ever scorer in the closing minutes after replacing Love; at 17 years and two months, he surpassed Thierry Henry, who notched his first Monégasque goal at 17 and eight months, against Lens in April 1995. Nevertheless, 4-4-2 is likely to be a fleeting horse-for-a-course for Jardim.
Perhaps the best advertisement for the tactic was the Brittany derby between Lorient and Guingamp, which is the gift that keeps on giving in this division. After a thrilling 2-2 draw at the Roudourou earlier in the season, Saturday’s return on Le Moustoir’s artificial surface was even better, with Raphaël Guerreiro’s late free-kick sealing a 4-3 win for Lorient.
The real meat of the match came before the Portugal left-footer’s stellar contribution, though. That both teams were brave enough to consistently try and win the game, rather than commit to avoid losing it, was exactly what made it such a spectacle. Even though Lorient had by far more efforts at goal - 26 to Guingamp’s 14 - the visitors pushed hard to the end, even replacing Jimmy Briand with a bustling target man - Sloan Privat - in stoppage time to try and force a win, just before Guerreiro struck.
The success of Lorient was particularly notable, however, especially when one considers they lost their top scorer, Benjamin Moukandjo, to injury midway through the first half, with Sylvain Ripoll’s team already a goal down. His replacement, Benjamin Jeannot, did a fine job, hitting the crossbar and equalising after Guingamp had earlier taken a 2-0 lead.
Jeannot’s shoot-on-sight policy saw him fire four shots in during just over an hour on the pitch, and he worked well with Abdul Majeed Waris, whose two goals made up for his meltdown in the first game between the two. Waris was keen to weigh in, having six shots during the match. It was an impressive display from a pair that are both more movement than physique-based.
They also showed that if you’re going to go with two up front, go hard. Toulouse’s approach was a little more half-hearted in a must-win game against Gazélec, with top scorer Wissam Ben Yedder playing a more withdrawn role behind Martin Braithwaite. The by-product of this was farming Oscar Trejo - the player in the squad best suited to the playmaker role - out to the right-hand side. He had only 57 touches of the ball, and Ben Yedder only managed a single shot in anger. In the end, Téfécé were fortunate to take a point via Braithwaite’s scrambled, last-gasp equaliser. Fortune continues, it seems, to favour the brave.
Is the two-man strike partnership making a comeback in Ligue 1? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below
