Clermont have stormed to a five point lead at the top of Ligue 2 following Friday’s 1-0 win away to Angers.
Michel Der Zakarian’s men followed up last week’s win against Stade de Reims with another huge victory to really put the pressure on Les Rouge et Blanc who would later face Nantes in the Monday kick-off.
Clermont had gone seven games unbeaten in the league, only tasting defeat in a recent friendly against St Etienne at the beginning of November. As for their hosts, they had gone three games unbeaten, picking up a huge win away to Chateauroux in the process thanks to Gaetan Charbonnier’s eighth league goal of the season.
Angers started off brightly and created a number of chances. Some hesitance in the Clermont backline allowed Charbonnier to demonstrate his wealth of ability by diligently chipping the ball over Fabien Farnolle but lacked a smidgen of precision for it to fall into the onion bag.
Both sides somewhat cancelled each other out, but proceedings after the interval were far more open. This became more apparent after the home side were reduced to ten men after Martin Fall picked up his second booking for a wreckless challenge. This led to a heated exchange between him and the linesman as he was ushered off the field.
This gave the visitors the impetus to press forward and were desperately unlucky not to take the lead as Cedric Bockhorni’s ball from the right was delicately touched goalwards by Jean Riviere, only to be denied by a stunning reflex save from Gregory Malicki.
Riviere again was involved, this time for the winner in the 73d minute. Central defender Anthony Ouasfane mistimed his jump, allowing the ball to fall over his head into the feet of the striker who bore in on goal only to be denied by an onrushing Malicki, but could do nothing about Mehdi Namli’s thunderbolt on the rebound.
To Angers’ credit, they continued to dig in despite their numerical disadvantage but could not create a real clear cut opportunity to rescue a point.
The scenes at the end told the tale for the victors, who know full well just how big a result it was and put the pressure on the challenge, in particular goalkeeper Farnolle who showed nothing but elation as he embraced his peers.
Meanwhile Guingamp leapt into second place thanks to Thibault’s injury time winner away at Laval, who incidentally took the lead in the very first minute only to be pegged back in the final quarter. Metz continued their good run of form by notching up a fourth consecutive win in Monte Carlo against hapless Monaco, who remain rooted to the foot of the table. Le Havre also picked up a precious point away to Boulogne thanks to Ryan Mendes and stay in touching distance of the top three.
Monday night saw Stade de Reims climb back to three points within Clermont. A slightly controvesial 3-1 win over FC Nantes saw them move back into second. Cedric Faure opened the scoring for Reims with a nice side-foot finish, although Floyd Ayite looked offside before cutting the ball back to the big number nine.
Nantes then had a superb claim for an equaliser following a scramble in the box, the ball clearly crossed the line, Johan Liebus did his best to scramble it clear but the replays showed it had crossed the line. Play continued and the home side cleared the danger. Reims then added a second through Kamel Ghilas’ superb volley and it soon became three. Faure again the goal scorer and Ayite the provider, nothing wrong with this goal.
Fabrice Pancrate added a late goal for Nantes, not sure you could even call this goal a consolation. The defeat leaves Nantes in ninth place, six points off the promotion places. It seems they are destined for another season outside the top flight.
Photo from Clermont Foot