With 30 rounds of games played (almost – the rain-affected Monaco v Montpellier from round 25 will be played on Tuesday), it’s a good time to have a look at how things are going further to our our round-up after game 13.

The Title Race

The top three have remained the same since game 11, when Bordeaux dropped out, and barring St Etienne’s brief hop up to third just after the winter break (see tab 3 of our Ligue 1 stats dashboard). However, after long spells at the top first for Marseille and then for Lyon, PSG have only just taken over, and there are only two points separating the top three. PSG travel to OM for the Classique on Sunday, while OL are at Guingamp, so there could be more changes at the top this weekend.

Attacking Quadrants

The PSG attack remains ruthless, requiring only 7 shots per goal. However their defence, while still formidable, has dropped off a bit since their early form – from 17.5 shots needed to score against them, to 10.5 (see tab 4 of the dashboard for the dynamic view).

Meanwhile Marseille’s attack is firing well – and frequently – but their defence is in the ‘good but overworked’ category. For the Classique, it looks like both teams will score – subject to the inevitable FFW game-of-the -week hex – with 2-1 to somebody looking a likely result, on which our betting provider has PSG at shorter odds (15/2 v 17/2).

Lyon, meanwhile, are top two on pretty much every metric going (tab 5), even with a slight drop-off after the winter break. As ever, they are struggling with a considerable injury list – most recently Christophe Jallet has been ruled out for four weeks after a shoulder injury on international duty. They really need to go for a win this weekend given the danger that PSG could open up the gap at the top; Guingamp have decent home form against the top sides, but an occasionally mis-firing attack, so given OL’s defensive strength, an away win does look likely.

Defensive Quadrants

And what of Monaco? They are four points off third, but have a game in hand – their defence remains solid despite staffing issues, with only 21 conceded, the lowest in the league. Add to that, they have started scoring goals, which was previously something of a worry, with three in each of their last league games (admittedly against bottom half opponents, Evian, Bastia and Reims).

Their next test will be tougher, against a St Etienne team just one point behind them and almost equally parsimonious at the back. While they also have been dealing with a swathe of injuries, the international break could give them a chance to refit. This game looks likely to be a low-scoring affair, whether tipped on the podcast or not, as both defences are formidable, and both attacks midtable (tabs 4 and 5), so we’ve put a euro on a goalless draw at 11/2.

Relegation Battle

At the other end of the table…Metz are gone. 11 points off safety, if everyone else continues as is, they would need to up their points tally to 2.5 per game to survive – they are currently on under 0.8. Also, their run-in is one of the hardest down there, including away trips to PSG, Monaco and Bordeaux, as well as OM at home. They will also play Lorient, Toulouse and Lens, all of whom will be fighting to claw their way out of danger. The first two look signficantly more likely to put something together than les Messins, but even Lens – who also look doomed – could riff on their pain.

Gold for top 7, red for bottom 7, green for mostly feet-up in midtable

After 13 games, Metz were ninth in the table, but as we noted, this looked unsustainable as they were outliers on several measures, notably pass completion – they’re still bottom on that, and also have the lowest conversion rate in the league (6.6%). They dropped off badly before Christmas, and hit bottom spot with a crash after game 22. Lens will need a similarly miraculous change in fortunes to escape relegation (from 0.8 pts per game to 2.3) and while their run-in is fairly par, you just can’t see them doing that.

Therefore, there looks to be just one place in Ligue 2 up for grabs. Toulouse are in it at the moment, but just a small improvement in performance (from 1.1 to 1.4 pts per game) could do it for them – they only play one of the top 4 (Monaco away) in the run-in, and 5 mid-table opponents. If ‘new manager bounce’ is a thing, therefore (reports are varied), they do have a decent chance of reaching safety, with Lorient 2 points ahead of them on 34, Caen, Reims and Evian on 35.

Lorient therefore look in a slightly sticky situation; they have bags of enthusiasm (top three for shots per game, on 13), but a bad conversion rate (8.7%), and despite the best efforts of Benjamin Lecomte, a shaky defence (12% concession rate). There will be five matches between the current bottom four in the run-in, for the allocation of the traditional six points. Lorient v Toulouse in game 33 could therefore be key in this battle.

PDO is the sum of conversion rate and save rate (so league result is 100)

Caen have the goal difference benefit (level, versus -14 for the other two on 35 points) after their wonderful run at the start of the year – the fear is that they may have shot their bolt with that epic effort, and struggle to replicate it after taking 1 point from the past three matches. However, while they have Monaco and Lyon to play, many of their other opponents are safely midtable, and may have taken their foot off the gas; also Caen have the strongest stats of the bottom seven (red), being in the ‘constant threat’ quadrant along with the top three, and a decent defence (good but overworked) resulting in a good balance. They could still get dragged back into it, but that seven-match unbeaten run looks to have got them enough in the bank for safety.

Evian always survive. We’ve given up thinking otherwise.

So, Reims – they have PSG and OL to play, and a 2015 record that reads W1, D4, L6. Wasteful in attack, bang average in defence, they’re away at Lille next (goalless draw?), then Nice at home and Bastia away, so could be in trouble before they even get to the Lyon game. If another team looks likely to have an uncomfortable end to the season, it could well be them.

Europe?

The final area of interest is who will qualify for Europe. This is a bit more complex because of the qualification criteria. The top three get a shot at the Champions League, and fourth goes into the 3rd qualifying round for the Europa League. Another Europa spot (group) goes to the Coupe de France, and another (3rd qualifying round) to the Coupe de la Ligue.  As PSG are in both cup finals, if they win either, the vacated place will revert to fifth in the league, and sixth if they win both.

St Etienne look best-placed to take fifth, with Bordeaux and Montpellier both stuttering recently – they meet on the last day, just to make things super-interesting, particularly if sixth place turns out to be important. Les Girondins’ run-in looks a little less complicated (they have to play OL and OM, but should take the points in home games against the bottom two; Montpellier have PSG and St Etienne, away) but this may be a bald man / comb situation in any event, if Bastia can beat PSG in the league cup final on 11 April and/or, more magically, Auxerre can beat PSG in the Coupe de France on 30 May.

Thank you to everyone who pointed out that we were previously reading the current year’s rules, where the losing Coupe de France finalist could qualify – this section has been amended on 10 April 2015 to reflect the change for 2015/16. Ed.

Conclusion

This is going to be great.

Sources:

Data from Football-Data.co.uk (with some reformatting and additions), and WhoScored. Analysis and visualisations using Bime Analytics. Quadrant approach based on that of Experimental 3-6-1 (note that these charts have been reoriented to match their approach, compared to the earlier article), and PDO is explained further by 11tegen11.