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  • Monday 12 April 2010

    Grenoble finally down: Ligue 1 reviews

    Toulouse 4-0 Grenoble
    Lorient 1-1 Rennes
    Monaco 2-1 Valenciennes
    Sochaux 0-2 St Etienne
    Le Mans 2-2 Montpellier
    Lens 3-0 Boulogne
    PSG 3-1 Bordeaux
    Lyon 1-1 Lille
    Nancy 0-1 Auxerre
    Marseille 4-1 Nice

    Lyon and Auxerre both had spells at the top of Ligue 1 over the course of the weekend as matches developed, but Marseille ended it top as they had been coming into the round. They were last in action, the late Sunday kick-off seeing them dispatch Nice with something to spare. Bakari Koné opened the scoring shortly before the break and it was two a few minutes after through Stéphane Mbia. Two in three minutes later on - Mathieu Valbuena and Souleymane Diawara - made it four and Nice only got their consolation in stoppage time. Auxerre had been in action earlier on Sunday and won through a late Daniel Niculae strike which sent them top, for a couple of hours at least. That was longer then Lyon had spent on top - it was all of about 16 minutes for Les Gones between the time Cris had equalised Pierre-Alain Frau's opener for Lille. Cris's goal came off the back of a free-kick given away by Ricardo Costa who saw red for his actions, but the sides would finish level as Maxime Gonalons followed him down the tunnel ten minutes from time. Bordeaux suffered a major setback, losing heavily to PSG. Bordeaux keeper Ulrich Ramé was sent off on the half-hour and it was an uphill battle from there. Sylvain Armand put PSG ahead before the break and Mevlut Erding made it two halfway through the second period. Ludovic Sané pulled one back, but Guillaume Hoarau headed in the clincher four minutes from time.

    Grenoble are down. They're now twenty points shy of safety with eighteen to play for after they were hammered by Toulouse - Franck Tabanou with two and André-Pierre Gignac making a welcome return ahead of the World Cup in a 4-0 win - and St Etienne went and beat Sochaux. Loic Perrin struck just before the break while Gonzalo Bergessio made it safe in the second half. Not only does that condemn Grenoble to their fate, it puts a buffer of eleven points back from Les Verts to Boulogne in 18th. That's not mathematically safe, but it'll take a huge turnaround in form for it to be overhauled. Toifilu Maoulida's hat-trick for Lens sank Boulogne and a point for Le Mans against the once mighty but now stuttering Montpellier wasn't enough to make much of a difference. Roland Lamah put Le Mans in front within seconds of the kick-off, but Karim Ait Fana and a Souleymane Camara penalty turned the game back Montpellier's way. They lost direction after a double sending-off, Le Mans' Gregory Cerdan and Montpellier's Cyril Jeunechamp both going within seconds of each other. Cerdan went for deliberate handball while Jeunechamp attacked the Le Mans coach Arnaud Cormier. Montpellier boss Rene Girard was also shown red before Lamah's second grabbed a point for Le Mans.

    Elsewhere, Monaco came from behind at home to beat Valenciennes who were in front through Milan Bisevac. After the break, Nene and Moussa Maazou turned it around. And there was a share of the spoils in the local skirmish between the Bretons of Lorient and Rennes. Sigamary Diarra put Lorient in front, but Romain Danze equalised before the break.

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