Ligue 2: Red Star- Racing Club Lens
Lens won this fixture 2-1 last season and ahead of the game I spoke about the huge advantages they had over Red Star in terms of budget, support and history...........
They (RCL) are unbeaten in five since I wrote that and are clearly on a roll, they could move as high as fourth with a big win today, but they are not known for their free scoring ways and they would settle for any kind of victory and fifth place, that would leave them six points off the pace and with 18 rounds to play for the biggest club in Ligue 2 , who are building up a head of steam, that would be huge . Red Star sit two points ahead of Lens, are themselves unbeaten in eight and have been this season's surprise package, along with BEBP, but they have won just three of nine home starts and their advantage here is minimal. Only 1,400 attended their last home game and Lens supporters, an incredible 26,000 of whom attended the match immediately before Christmas, are traveling in huge numbers and will make up MOST of the crowd, with the match close to a sell out. Those numbers alone tell you the difference between these two, as does the respective playing budgets of 8m and 20m for this campaign and RCL felt hard done by with theirs, after having to trim it by more than half following relegation !
I think that Lens are the stronger team now and do not underestimate the part the supporters will play, they are a noisy lot anyway and in a small ground where they will perhaps occupy three sides, it gives them a huge advantage and it will be intimidating for the home players.
That support played a big part in RCL fighting back from 1-0 down at the hour mark to edge home, with a lot of pressure on the match officials (Red Star ended the match with 9 men). I would estimate that Lens fans made up 5/6th's of the attendance, that was played on Saturday afternoon, so I doubt we can expect quite the same level of support today, but it will still be big and a little intimidating and fired up, after RCL won their home derby game with Valenciennes last week 2-0 in front of 35,000 +! They have the 6th biggest average attendance in France and I would say that Ligue 1 needs them, as much as the reverse is true. They are better placed this season, both on and off the pitch and sit in the second automatic promotion spot, but will almost certainly need to win this to stay there.
They could never get in a real blow at the top three last season after that January win at Red Star, but I spoke of them as a big potential improver early in this campaign and they look better equipped to make the next step up, they play Sochaux, Reims and Brest next, so it is easy to make a case for this being more win-able with the host in decent form (unbeaten in five), but down in 16th place and operating more at a level commensurate with their budget, which was trimmed by 10% despite their 5th placed finish last season. Red Star have won four home starts, coming against teams with an average league placing of 17.25, including 3 of the bottom 4, they have lost five, to teams with a mean of 7.2, including the other two top 3 teams by a combined 4-0 goals difference.
The home side are without Jean-Charles Castelletto, Ronald Zubar, and Pierrick Cros (two players with that name btw, other is a back up keeper), they are all centre backs and that leaves Red Star very short handed today. They have named four "defenders", two right backs, a CD who has not played since December and made only 8 starts in the last two seasons and a defensive midfielder who is 35 yo, was brought in as a free agent and has played 130 minutes at tier 3 this season ! That is not good enough, this looks a fantastic opportunity for the visitors and I expect them to win.
1.25 units Racing Club Lens -0.5 ball 2.11 asian line/Sportmarket.
Red Star : Geoffrey Lembet, Pierrick Cros, Lloyd Palun, Jérôme Hergault, Guy Demel, Formose Mendy, Ludovic Sylvestre, Xavier Chavalerin, Idriss Mhirsi, Jonathan Mexique, Grégoire Lefebvre, Florian Makhedjouf,Julien Toudic, Sékou Keita, Anatole Ngamukol, Abdoulaye Sané.
Lens : Douchez, Vachoux - Lala, Duverne, Cvetinovic, Oparé, Hafez, Scaramozzino - Bourigeaud, Bostock, Koukou, Zoubir, Autret - Fortuné, Lopez, Erasmus, Habibou.
Good Luck.
