Olympique Lyonnais won their second consecutive victory on Sunday 25 October in their Groupama stadium by winning out against a worrying Monaco team (4-1) at the end of the 8e Ligue 1 day. Les Gones thus continued their rise in the French championship standings. With a sparkling Memphis Depay and a double scorer Karl Toko Ekambi, the Lyonnais taught Niko Kovac’s men a lesson and are now 6es two points from the podium. Monaco is stuck at the 12e square.
OL can thus approach with full confidence their shock in Lille, co-leader with Paris-Saint-Germain, on Sunday before hosting Saint-Etienne for the derby eight days later.
A series is what Olympique Lyonnais lacks to regain a rank more in line with its budget and its standing. Two victories is already a good start, especially as Lyon seem to be finally relying on a new attack that success was often elusive last season.
Coach Rudi Garcia had chosen to confirm at kick-off the starting XI who had won in Strasbourg (3-2) except for the Belgian Jason Denayer, injured, and replaced in central defense by the young Sinaly Diomandé. Memphis Depay confirmed his current good arrangements by opening the scoring after a pass from Houssem Aouar in the 12e minute while an action of the latter would have deserved a better conclusion (27). Karl Toko-Ekambi, author of a double in Strasbourg, did it again against Monaco by taking over in two stages a cross from Tino Kadewere (34) and taking advantage of a misunderstanding of the Monegasque defense (44). In the meantime, the Cameroonian had obtained a penalty converted by Aouar that Memphis had let shoot (40).
With 72% possession of the ball at the break, AS Monaco can have it bad, especially as OL only scored four shots in the first 45 minutes. But his defensive evening generosity, disturbing, could not allow him to hope for anything else.
In Lyon, the evening performance, without control of the game, is reminiscent of their matches in the League Cup final against PSG or the Champions League played in August against Juventus or Manchester City during which the Rhone had adopted a game plan to leave the ball to the opponent, with success.
Lopes determining
But with these statistics and these observations, the Lyonnais must not forget that their goalkeeper, Anthony Lopes, was decisive in this victory for brilliantly saving his team on three occasions which should have allowed the Monegasques to score early in the game. He deflected a header from Stevan Jovetic for a corner in the 3e minute before making a very nice parade on a recovery from the head of Wissam Ben Yedder (11) then on a shot from Youssouf Fofana (19).
And that’s without counting on the situations during which the defense of OL was severely put in difficulty, without breaking as it could sometimes do last season or against Strasbourg back from a score of 3-0 to 3-2. Apart from the penalty conceded by Sinaly Diomandé in front of Ruben Aguilar and transformed by Ben Yedder (48).
In the second half, Lyon were again dominated but Monaco was not more efficient than before half-time while OL, who finished the game at ten after the severe exclusion of young Melvin Bard (89) was rather discreet on the offensive side. Most of it had been done in the first forty-five minutes.
The results of the eighth day
Friday 23 October
Rennes 1 – 2 Angers
Saturday 24 October
Lorient 0 – 1 Marseille
Paris 4 – 0 Dijon
Sunday 25 October
Lens – Nantes (Postponed)
Bordeaux 2 – 0 Nîmes
Brest 0 – 3 Strasbourg
Metz 2 – 0 Saint-Etienne
Montpellier 0 – 4 Reims
Nice 1 – 1 Lille
Lyon 4 – 1 Monaco