I gave Auxerre a "big up" last week and they obliged with a 3-1 win over league leading Brest...........
Auxerre are a major under achiever this season, after finishing 8th last season and having had good cup runs in recent campaigns, they were at least expected to challenge for promotion, instead they are second from bottom and the lowest scorers in Ligue 2. However, there have been signs of life in 2017, road wins at Clermont and Sochaux (on Tuesday) and a cup defeat of highflying Ligue 1 team St Etienne have shown what they are capable of, now they need to find some home form in the league. Brest arrive as Ligue 2 leaders, but had a 15 hour round trip to Clermont in midweek (1-1) and face another lengthy 7 hour journey ahead of this .
The hosts gave themselves a chance of survival in the window bringing in several players, including Birama Toure and Mohamed Yattara on loan from Standard Liege neither of whom would have been "cheap". Toure returns to the squad today along with Yaya Sane and vastly experienced Ludovic Obraniak who has almost 300 Ligue 1 starts to his name. They are big options to freshen up a group who are coming off a confidence boosting win at Sochaux.
This is historically a very hard fought close encounter and 7 of the last 8 have featured a maximum one goal, easy to see this being similarly close and whilst Brest are having much the better season, I see Auxerre as the hungriest right now. They showed their best form of last season at this stage (one defeat in 9 from mid January and averaging 1.7 goals at home from their final ten starts) and lost just 2 from 10 after the Christmas break in 2014-15, also reaching the final of the National cup. I felt Brest were lucky to claim a point at Clermont in midweek , with the hosts well on top, they have put in a lot of road miles this week, the scheudule has not been kind to them and this is a good opportunity for Auxerre to take advantage and really kick start their survival push.
Suddenly, and it can happen very quickly in football, all sport for that matter, Auxerre suddenly look a completely different team and one with plenty of quality. Toure scored last week, he, Obraniak and Yattara all started , they will have had a further seven days to gel and bond and bask in the warm glow of back to back league wins (and against two top sides) for the first time since Methuselah last went to school in short trousers ! Still, they are far from safe, their next two starts are against top ten teams also, so points against poor travellers Ajaccio (7 away wins in 88 starts), who have not won away to Auxerre in seven attempts, look easier to come by today.
1.25 units Auxerre -0.5 ball 2.37 asian line/Sportmarket.
Auxerre : Boucher, Lenogue - Aguilar, Y. Sané, Tacalfred, Sparagna, Fournier, Boto, Touré, Goujon, Sissako, Obraniak, Ba, Fumu Tamuzo, Courtet, Yattara.
AC Ajaccio : Abdallah, Abergel, Babiloni, Boé-Kane, Cabit, Camara, Chaïbi, Frikèche, Gakpa, Goda, Maazou, Madri, Mandanda, Pierre-Charles, Nouri, Sainati, Vialla.
Good Luck.
