Taken from today's first subscriber newsletter......
Tours are very fast starters and have collected a L2 high 39 points before the break (7-2-1 @ home) , just 13 afterwards and whilst they have got stronger recently through the second period, there is obviously a good chance they will be at their best early, just one away win before the break and one after for Ajaccio, lots of draws, but they are going to be on the back foot tonight, especially early given the usual high tempo start from Tours. They look good to win the first half, but so that we do not have all our eggs in one basket, "over" I goal @ 2.35 for 1 unit will be my suggestion, with their home starts averaging 1.8 per game before the break, comfortably a L2 high.
Chateauroux are in deep trouble, four points from safety and have been fighting a relegation campaign for three years, they lost that battle last season and were preparing for a season in the third tier , before earning a reprieve from relegation and were in truth, ill equipped for another season in Ligue 2 . However, they will have to gamble today and will have a fitness advantage over HAC, the hosts are much better than the league table indicates and can be unplayable at this level on a going day, any of you who watched their comprehensive 3-2 (the scoreline does not reflect the performance) defeat of Troyes will know what I mean, the problem is those going days are few and far between and you can never be quite sure when they will come. However, they have a very good h2h record in this fixture and will surely fancy this and Chat have not kept a cleansheet in eight starts.
The hosts also have a new coach to impress in Thierry Goudet, this was a very strange appointment, with Goudet not having been in charge of a professional club since 2008, but he has a strong group of players to work with, is only really missing central defender Zargo Touré who is at the ACN and will want to start with all three points. Touré has been an almost ever present over the last three season, the hosts are without a win in the four games in which he has played 22 minutes or less. The visitors are without right back Loic Nestor, left back Johan Obiang and defensive midfielder Distel Zola. Both teams are weakened defensively, but an edge in match fitness for the weaker team who have to start taking some chances.
Hosts remain without Nestor, Obiang and Zola ( see all three above) and three goal midfielder Nasser Chamed.
Now they (Brest) meet another in Angers, who are on an unbeaten run of four games and have scored ten goals through that sequence, ahead of the last a 3-1 road win at Arles, I wrote ......
Angers have been creeping back into the promotion race over the last couple of months and will be desperate for maximum points this evening at basement club Arles. A blip against Troyes aside, which they immediately bounced back from , Angers have taken seven points from highflyers Dijon, Sochaux and Nancy in recent outings and scored seven goals in their last three starts, the board has shown ambition and imagination with the signing of Seul Axel Ngando,who earned a move to Stade ]Rennais by virtue of his impressive last season at this level with Auxerre, the French U21 international looks good business and more than that, is a statement of intent. Arles are, with goal difference, effectively 11 points from safety, they will have to throw caution to the wind from now on in to have any chance of survival, but in truth, the third tier awaits. The lack of goals is the major concern and when they open up, especially against the stronger teams they concede too freely, they have conceded two or more to the other promotion hopefuls they have played at home, Sochaux, Dijon and Troyes and in the reverse fixture in Angers.
The hosts have had ten days to prepare solely for this and things are seemingly going their way, they are making a big thing about the home debut of Axel Ngando ( see above) and Khaled Ayari returns to the squad after nine and a half months out, not sure that he will be up to more than 10-15 minutes at best, but he scored 9 goals last season and just to have him on the sidelines is a major boost and will greatly increase options over the next 3-4 months. Angers will move above the visitors and up into fourth with a win , they are 6-2-1 at home, won this fixture 2-1 last season and could be meeting Brest at exactly the right time.
They lost 2-1 conceding an injury time winner, they were well on top for much of the game and looked the only winner after equalising an early goal for Brest, they hit the woodwork shortly before the killer late blow and were left crestfallen by the loss. Not much time to lift spirits, nor equally to brood on the defeat, they do have the always difficult Monday-Friday turnaround to overcome , but are very ....................
The final analysis of this game and a total of nine match previews sent today, are only available to subscribers of the newsletter service, we are off to a good start today with a 2.80 winner on the Djokovic- Wawrinka semi final from Melbourne.
Good Luck.
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