Ligue 1 – Surprised at home by Nice (1-2), Lorient falls from the podium

Lorient has surprised a lot of people since the start of the 2022-2023 season, but Les Merlus have suffered a breakdown. At home against OGC Nice, Régis Le Bris’ men experienced their first defeat after an unbeaten streak of eight games (2-1). The Bretons dominated in the first period but were punished by Nice and supportive and more realistic in the long term. With this success, Nice moved up to tenth place in Ligue 1 while Lorient left its third place to neighboring Stade Rennais.

Is the Gym waking up? After a complicated start to the season, the Aiglons had an excellent week with a success on the European scene and another in the league. Author of a good away record since the start of the season with three wins and two draws in seven trips, Nice took advantage of a second period to their advantage.

But before that, the collective of Lucien Favre suffered enormously from the Lorient assaults in the first period. Fortunately for the Azureans, Kasper Schmeichel saved his partners several times in front of Théo Le Bris (10th), then Stéphane Diarra (10th, 21st, 24th). Meanwhile, the Danish international goalkeeper had been unable to do anything on a header from Dango Ouattara, symbol of total local domination (1-0, 18th).

Laborde goalscorer

In apnea for almost half an hour, Nice gradually resurfaced thereafter. By individual action first with the breakthroughs of Youcef Atal defeated by Yvon Mvogo (27th, 34th), then with collective actions built and punctuated by Mario Lemina (54th). Logically, Nice offered the equalizing goal thanks to a new number of soloist signed Atal (1-1, 61st).

Several times, Nicolas Pépé tried to put his name on the list of scorers thanks to his left foot (50th, 76th, 88th) but the winning goal finally found a taker with the incoming Gaëtan Laborde, successful on a deflected shot to lob Mvogo (2-1, 70th). In the last minutes, Jordan Lotomba saved a strike from Adil Aouchiche (85th) on his line, enough to allow Nice to achieve success and more confidence. For the surprising Lorient on the other hand, we will have to quickly digest this setback.