PARIS: Lille, who climbed to the top of the French first division last weekend by demolishing Lorient, maintained top spot on Saturday but only after an injury time goal downed bottom club Arles-Avignon.
With second-placed Paris Saint Germain keeping the wheels on their title push with a 2-1 win at Valenciennes, Lille were in danger of seeing their capital rivals depose them at the summit.
But after minnows Arles had manfully held their own Tulio De Melo popped up with a header in the 93rd minute to earn Lille their eighth win of the campaign.
Given that this encounter was pitting the team boasting the league’s most prolific attack against the most porous defence, Lille will have breathed a sigh of relief after avoiding a slip up by a mere matter of seconds.
Coach Rudi Garcia’s pre-match prediction that the game should carry a ‘banana-skin’ health warning proved more accurate than he would have dared imagine.
After the match he commented: “This is an important win. We had a difficult game and had to wait. I’d warned this all week and finally what they say is true – there are no easy matches in this division.”
PSG had Nene to thank for their win at Valenciennes, the Brazilian striker putting the visitors into the lead shortly after the break. Vincent Aboubakar levelled for Valenciennes in the 82nd minute with Nene providing the perfect response with his decisive second six minutes from time.
That was his 11th goal of the season, and it was one to savour, a peach of a lob from the right of the box with the ball sailing past Valenciennes ‘keeper Nicolas Penneteau.
This was PSG’s tenth game without defeat and it further advertised their claims as worthy title contenders in this most open of all title races. Elsewhere Lorient picked themselves up after last weekend’s 6-3 thrashing by Lille to register a 3-0 home win over Lens while Nancy beat Sochaux 1-0. The matches between Caen and Nice and Brest against Montpellier ended in goalless draws.
Buoyed by victory over Chelsea in their final Champions League group game in mid-week, French champions Marseille were out to revitalise their domestic title defence at Auxerre in Saturday’s late kick-off.
A 1-0 defeat at near neighbours Nice saw Marseille slip from first to fourth in the French top flight last weekend.
And they started brightly, with Loic Remy putting them in to an eighth minute lead with a header after being set up by Brandao, author of the goal that downed Chelsea on Wednesday. Marseille were then struck a double blow with Stephane Mbia sent off for felling Auxerre striker Julien Quercia in the box, with Valter Birsa converting the resulting penalty to send the two sides into the dressing room at the break all square.
Auxerre were unable to capitalise on their numerical superiority in the second half although substitute Frederic Sanmaritano went close with his angled shot from the right in the dying minutes. The draw put Marseille on 27 points, in third, but Didier Deschamps’ men can be overtaken by both Rennes, who are at Bordeaux, and Lyon, who host Toulouse, on Sunday, which also features Saint Etienne at Monaco.
