Ligue 1:

2025/26				Overall									Home						Away
				P	W	D	L	F	A	Gdf	Pts	Form	P	W	D	L	F	A	P	W	D	L	F	A
	1		Lens	22	17	1	4	42	17	+25	52	WWWL	11	10	0	1	21	5	11	7	1	3	21	12
	2		Paris SG	22	16	3	3	49	19	+30	51	LWWW	10	9	1	0	27	4	12	7	2	3	22	15
	3		Lyon	22	14	3	5	36	20	+16	45	WWWW	11	9	0	2	19	7	11	5	3	3	17	13

 

Lyon might say differently but the title race looks down to two teams and even that is one more than usual at this stage of the campaign!

 

In the summer I wrote ..... PSG won Ligue 1 by 19 points and across the last 13 seasons have finished 1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1. That is crazy good, but their budget is three times that of Marseille and five times greater than anyone else. However, they have yet to win five in a row and priority will surely be a CL repeat. I am not saying that there will be a domestic drop off from PSG, just that it is not their #1 target and it could happen and is overdue. Their points total of 76 in 2023/24 is beatable and I can see one team getting at least close to that.

 

In the last ten seasons the team leading after 22 rounds has gone on to win the league, eight of those titles went to PSG and in each they had 53+ points at this stage. They are not much adrift of that, but adrift they are and that should encourage Lens, as should the fact that they have a respective 3 and 4 points more than the other two title winners in that sequence, Monaco in 2016/17 and Lille in 2020/21. RCL went close in 22/23 finishing just a point behind the Parisians and the season before and two after, PSG had won the title by 15-9-19 points, so that was an heroic attempt all things considered and we can expect another. 

 

PSG are quite rightly strong favourites, but priority for them will be a Champions League defence and for Lens, despite still being in the Coupe de France, it will be all about trying to win a first Ligue 1 title since 1998 and only the second in the club's history. They also still have to host PSG and that is schedule in between the Champions League quarter finals, it is possible that if involved the Parisians will look to get that postponed, they did for one game last season, but did actually play in the league between the semi finals with Arsenal, they had, however, already won Ligue 1 at that stage. My thinking is that whenever it is played it will either come at a poor time for PSG in terms of schedule, or when they are feeling sorry for themselves if they are out of the CL!

 

No one is scoring more freely than Lens, 26 goals in their last 10 starts, 9 wins and they are 2-1-2 in the last five h2h home games with PSG and this season are probably stronger than for any of those. RCL came up 17 goals light of their xGF last season, I touched upon that in the summer and they are on course to better that expected number by five and yet xGF again says they are 5-6 goals short, so, even if they cannot step up, there is little to suggest that their goal total should drop off.

 

Of course, ask me to pick the winner of Ligue 1 and I am going to say PSG, but that is not the name of the game. They are priced at circa 1.10 to finish as champions with Lens at 9.0 and even bigger in a couple of places and I think the underdog wins this "two horse" race more often than those odds suggest.

 

1.5 units Racing Club Lens to win Ligue 1 @ 8.0-9.0 general quote.

 

Good luck!