It is always interesting to see how the teams playing in Europe will cope with the added strain when they return to league action. Six teams will try to find that balance this weekend, with four games on Sunday – including the mouth-watering Olympico!

Stade Rennais v Lille OSC: Friday 19:30 – @psharland55

Stade de Reims v Paris Saint-Germain: Saturday 16:30 – @Philby1976

Last season, this would not have been a top-of-the-table clash, but a fine start from Reims (see @Gibney_A’s column) means that this is third playing first. The cork-popping side from the Champagne region have so far beaten Bordeaux, Marseille, and Lorient, lost to Nantes and drawn with Toulouse, both points-droppers coming away from home. They aren’t the most enthusiastic of attacks but when they do have an attempt, they are pretty efficient, taking only six shots per goal, and they share the goals around the squad.

PSG’s style is more dominant, shooting more and keeping five clean sheets, including against Malmo in the Champions League on Tuesday, and in away wins at Lille, Monaco and Montpellier. As discussed on the pod this week, Edinson Cavani is scoring but not impressing, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic is yet to find the net, but now Angel Di Maria has got himself on the score-sheet, and with Blaise Matuidi bossing around in midfield, they will be clear favourites for this.

The need to keep tabs on a high-quality attack will probably mean that Olivier Guégan’s side can’t sensibly increase their attacking effort, but if they can keep up their smart conversion rate (16.7%) and the uncertainty caused by their nine goals coming from seven scorers so far, this could be a more complicated endeavour for PSG than you might expect.

It seems unlikely that PSG’s goalkeeper – whichever one gets the nod – will gift goals as happened against Bordeaux, but they will need to stay focussed and not take their feet off the gas to avoid dropping points again.

Olympique de Marseille v Olympique Lyonnais: Sunday 20:00 – @thcoast

Marseille’s 4-1 win at the weekend will have helped OM’s fans forget the team’s terrible performance against Guingamp. Michel’s side clearly benefitted from the international break, as they appeared to play with a lot more creative freedom, albeit against a poor Bastia side.

They will go into Sunday’s game full of confidence and will be relying on both Romain Alessandrini and Michy Batshuayi, who both picked up goals against Bastia, to make something happen.

As for Lyon, the effect of the loss of Nabil Fékir was apparent against Lille as Hubert Fournier’s team failed to find the back of the net against a very stubborn Vincent Enyeama. Furthermore, Alexandre Lacazette’s lack of goals will certainly be starting to worry fans, team and manager alike – especially after he missed Wednesday’s potential game-winning penalty against Gent.

However, both of Lyon’s wins this season have come away from home, and they will be hoping to pick up a third against a relatively leaky Marseille defence who have already conceded five goals in five games.

If last year’s 0-0 is anything to go by, both teams could easily look to cancel each other out on Sunday for fear of dropping important points, but that would be boring, and no one wants that.

TIPS

On this week’s podcast, Andrew picked three home wins: Caen over Montpellier, Guingamp over Gazelec and Saint-Etienne to beat Nantes – £5 bet would win you around £35 – both Jeremy and Rich agreed with him – but what did the rest of the team say…

PREDICTIONS