Lille v St Etienne
Toulouse v Sochaux
Two games in France on Thursday night form the start of an English week which won't be concluded until Wednesday December 16. Yes, it's classic FFF organisation once again - you should all be used to that by now. Two games this Thursday are followed by a full weekend round as usual (previews on Friday night) which itself is followed by eight games next Tuesday and Wednesday. Then comes another midweek round just before Christmas which precedes the winter break. Got that? There will be questions later...
Lille won a thriller last weekend against Lyon, coming from 3-1 down to snatch a late win and recent form in Ligue 1 and in Europe has been much better. St Etienne, meanwhile, are grubbing around for points and were very fortunate to grab a point off Sochaux last Saturday. Fortunately for them, they're hard to break down and have a keeper, Jeremie Janot, in prime form. Given the disparity in recent form, it's hard to look past a Lille win, but not by more than a single goal. Both Sochaux and Toulouse are utterly unpredictable. Les Violets became the first side this season to go down to Grenoble, so that probably means they're due for a win here. Sochaux, meanwhile, hammered St Etienne last weekend but failed to find the breakthrough. The normally prolific Vaclav Sverkos has lost his touch recently and they'll need him to start finding the back of the net again if they're to keep themselves out of bother. It's got goalless draw written all over it.
Elsewhere in the league, it's taken this long for a Ligue 1 manager to lose his job and it's Le Mans who have blinked first. Second-bottom with just nine points to their name, they wanted their Portuguese manager Paolo Duarte not to go to the African Nations Cup in his role as Burkina Faso boss in order that he concentrate on his club duties. Duarte refused and so has left the club. Arnaud Cormier, formerly Duarte's assistant, takes over, at least until the end of the season.
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