Ligue 2: Valenciennes - Nancy
I opposed Nancy last week at home to Brest, taking the visitors off level ball and also going "over", Brest led 2-0 before the break and we looked good for a double win, but had to settle for a "push" on one, with Nancy showing battling qualities to fight back for a share of the spoils. Ahead of that I wrote ......
I am not the biggest fan of Brest, but they are more pleasing on the eye under Jean-Marc Furlan and he knows how to get promotion from this league, having done so three times with Troyes and he has got the visitors knocking on the door, sitting in 7th, seven points off automatic promotion, five from the play off spot. He will know they are not going to force their way into one of those by settling for too many draws, which was the old Brest way and they have been happier on the road for many months, winning 7/12 and with their 11 awaty starts this season averaging a whopping 3.18 goals per game, which is 1.27 more than at the same stage last season and when teams are benefitting from playing a more open approach, it is hard to come up for a legitimate reason for that to change. They will surely arrive looking for maximum points today from a Nancy side, who like many before them, have struggled back in L2 after relegation from the top flight, they started well enough, but I spoke about their recent struggles ahead of their last home start , a visit from Nimes .......
The home side are struggling to win games, just four all season with only Tours registering fewer, they were unbeaten at home for a long while, lots of draws, but have lost their last two, to Paris FC and Le Havre, without scoring, those two are amongst the five teams chasing Nimes and that should both encourage and motivate Nimes. Nancy are in that situation we spoke about recently where unbeaten runs with lots of draws quickly turn the other way after a couple of defeats and the hosts have now won just 3 from 10 at home (6/20 since Christmas 2016).
Nimes won 2-0, Nancy have subsequently lost 1-0 at Sochaux and are now just four points above the drop zone with two of just three teams below them starting to pick up points and they must be getting very worried. They have managed just one attempt on goal in two away starts in 2018, offer more offensively on home soil, but were dominated by Nimes here in their other start this year and I see no reason why they should be favoured this evening.
Hosts have been very reliant on the goals of Youssouf Hadji, he has scored 9 of 22 and seven of those came in Nancy's four wins, none without a contribution from him and opponents have learned how to deal with him and /or cut off the supply, he has scored in just one game since the end of September and along with that has come the host's loss of form.
This is the stage of the season we can expect those struggling teams who are going to survive to pick up, but we have not seen any evidence of that from Nancy yet and it feels like this match has been priced on the host's "need" rather than any ability shown on the pitch. However, that "need" has to come into play and with Brest playing openly on the road, we should see both on the scoresheet.
Amine Bassi (pictured) was the game changer, with the just turned 20 yo Moroccan U23 international scoring a goal and assisting for the other, he has contributed to 11 this season, but none since November and he probably fancies today as he scored twice and provided the other in a 3-0 win in the reverse fixture . Bassi had only played 90 minutes of first team football prior to this season and is learning and improving fast and will surely be on the radar of a lot of clubs and if he is not, he should be !
Three starters from last week in Cuffaut, Ba and Abergel are suspended today and with injuries in similar areas, Nancy are VERY short of holding options in the middle of the park, or any they really wanted to go with at right back.
Valenciennes are wildly inconsistent and rarely play the same one week to the next, they can score freely enough, but have conceded the most of any team outside the bottom three and given that Nancy are not going to get anything from this without a goal and their three in the reverse meeting and Bassi's return to form, there should be at least one goal in this for both teams and that is just as a starting point. VAFC 's last six wins have been 2-1/4-2/3-1/2-0/4-3/4-1 and I see something very similar this evening .
1.75 units "over" 2.5 goals 2.27 asian line/Sportmarket.
Valenciennes : Merville, Perquis - Aloé, Dos Santos, Niakaté, Nery, Nestor, Tahrat - Karaboué, Masson, Mauricio, Nangis, Ramaré, Robail, Roudet, Thiago - Ambri, Tell.
Nancy : Chernik, Ndy Assembe, Cétout, Lang, Diagne, Fischer, Chrétien, Muratori, Badila, N'Guessan, Clément, Bassi, Robic, Koura, Hadji, Dalé, Busin, Nordin.
Good Luck.
