Lorient vs Olympique de Marseille
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Today’s free tip is in the French Ligue 1 encounter between Lorient and Olympique de Marseille.
It’s nice to see Olympique de Marseille heading straight back to the doldrums, isn’t it? I don’t know what it is about the south coast side, but I simply can’t warm to them. Their fans are usually pricks, and their players have the arrogance of Neymar with nowhere near as much talent. To think that, despite spending boatloads of money, this club has Villas-Boas as manager, and still massively over-relies upon winger Thauvin, is embarrassing.
I find it hard to have any sympathy for this team, really. They’re lazy, they’re casual, and they don’t exactly play good football. At no stage do they ever look comfortable in games; usually just inches away from conceding. They don’t score enough goals in order for it to not matter either. Can that be considered a surprise, though? It’s bad enough that they over-rely on Thauvin, as I said, or even Payet (unavailable today), but the fact that they regard Benedetto/Germain as adequate forwards to lead their line is laughable. Germain works bloody hard, and Benedetto can sometimes produce something marvellous, but neither are consistently good finishers.
Olympique de Marseille tried to distract its restless fans by acquiring talented central midfielder Cuisance from Bayern Munich. I don’t get it, though – they’re well-stocked in that area. They don’t need another central midfielder! What they need is a proven goal-scorer, a leaders, and better defenders. Until those things happen, Olympique de Marseille will remain a predictable, disjointed, and inefficient. The players they’ve got to win them games are there, for the most part, but there’s no semblance of a unified approach, hence their continued failures. Give it until Christmas – Villas-Boas will be gone, and another manager will replace him, only to fail in the same way because of how much the club gets wrong.
A team like this does not scare Lorient, and why should it? Olympique de Marseille are a massive club with a lot of fans, but it’s been a long time since they last played like a good team. Lorient are faster, more confident, and more dangerous than their more illustrious visitors. I’m not saying that Lorient will win this one, but I’d certainly rather back them than their opponents right now because I know what I’ll get from Lorient. When it comes to the away team, who really knows?
Despite not picking up many points along the way, what Lorient have offered this season has been very consistent. They’ve attacked, they’ve scored goals, and they’ve upset the rhythm of their opponents. Cataclysmic defending has led to many opponents scoring against them, it’s true, but nobody has managed to contain them as of yet, and I doubt Olympique de Marseille will be an exception, not with Wissa in the form he’s in. Even the absence of Marveaux should not change that here.
Lorient look very fast and dangerous in the final third, and although I’m sure they’ll drop off at some stage, there’s no sign whatsoever of it being soon. All of their moves are progressive; there’s nothing patient about what they do. Even against ten-man Stade de Reims last time out, they were giving a lot of chances away! Despite that though, Lorient doesn’t let it get the team down. They’re still the same confident, ballsy Bretagne side that they’ve always been, and a team with such energy is always likely to cause Olympique de Marseille problems.
Lorient can’t defend though. Even Olympique de Marseille will be able to score against them here, if only because Thauvin is on the pitch. Therefore, I’m on both teams to score at 4/5.
Verdict: Both teams to score at 4/5.
Saturday’s Thoughts
As ever, if there are any explanations required then please feel free to post a comment! For the remainder of my thoughts on today’s games, see below, although I feel compelled to write that the below are not necessarily my tips but merely my thoughts. For confidence ratings, you’ll need to go to the members section here.
Austrian Bundesliga:
Austria Vienna vs Salzburg
SCR Altach vs Admira Wacker
SV Ried vs Sturm Graz
Belgian Eerste Klasse:
AS Eupen vs KV Mechelen
Cercle Brugge vs Royal Excel Mouscron
OH Leuven vs Club Brugge
Brazilian Serie A:
RB Bragantino vs Goias
Ceara vs Coritiba
Atletico Mineiro vs Sport Recife
Bulgarian A PFG:
Tsarsko selo vs Lokomotiv Plovdiv
Levski Sofia vs Cherno More Varna
Danish Superligaen:
Brondby vs FC Midtjylland
English Premier League:
West Ham United vs Manchester City
Fulham vs Crystal Palace
Manchester United vs Chelsea
Liverpool vs Sheffield United
Estonian Meistriliiga:
Tulevik vs Tammeka
Legion vs Tallinna Kalev
Trans Narva vs FCI Levadia Tallinn
Faroese Betrideildin:
AB vs HB Torshavn
NSI Runavik vs Vikingur Gota
Finnish Ykkonen:
KPV vs MuSa
Kajaani vs SJK-Akatemia
AC Oulu vs MP
Jaro Pietarsaari vs KTP
MyPa vs Ekenas IF
French Ligue 1:
Lorient vs Olympique de Marseille
Paris Saint-Germain vs Dijon FCO
German Bundesliga:
Bayern Munich vs Eintracht Frankfurt
RB Leipzig vs Hertha Berlin
Union Berlin vs SC Freiburg
Mainz 05 vs Borussia Moenchengladbach
Bv09 Borussia Dortmund vs Schalke 04
German Bundesliga 2:
Hamburger SV vs Wurzburger Kickers
Darmstadt 98 vs St. Pauli
Hannover 96 vs Fortuna Dusseldorf
Holstein Kiel vs Greuther Furth
Hungarian Liga 1:
MTK Budapest vs Varda SE
Paksi SE vs Budapest Honved
Ferencvaros vs Ujpest
Icelandic Urvalsdeild:
Fylkir Reykjavik vs IA
KA vs Valur Reykjavik
Fjolnir Reykjavik vs HK
Breidablik Kopavogur vs Vikingur Reykjavik
Italian Serie A:
Atalanta Bergamo vs Sampdoria
Genoa vs Internazionale
SS Lazio vs Bologna
Italian Serie B:
Monza vs Chievo Verona
Pordenone vs Reggina
Salernitana vs Ascoli
SPAL vs Vicenza
Virtus Entella vs Venezia
Pescara vs Frosinone
Dutch Eredivisie:
VVV vs AFC Ajax Amsterdam
FC Utrecht vs FC Twente Enschede
PEC Zwolle vs Willem II
SC Heerenveen vs FC Emmen
Norwegian Eliteserien:
Start Kristiansand vs Sandefjord
Brann Bergen vs Stabaek
Portuguese Liga 1:
CD Nacional de Madeira vs Pacos de Ferreira
Santa Clara vs Sporting Clube de Portugal
FC Porto vs Gil Vicente
Portuguese Liga 2:
Cova de Piedade vs Leixoes Matosinhos
FC Porto II vs Chaves
Vilafranquense vs Casa Pia
SL Benfica II vs Academico Viseu
Russian Premier League:
Dinamo Moscow vs PFC Sochi
Zenit St. Petersburg vs Rubin Kazan
FK Krasnodar vs Spartak Moscow
Lokomotiv Moscow vs Rotor Volgograd
Spanish Primera Liga:
CA Osasuna vs Athletic Club
Barcelona CF vs Real Madrid
Sevilla CF vs Eibar
Atletico Madrid vs Real Betis Balompie
Swedish Allsvenskan:
BK Hacken Goteborg vs Mjallby Solvesborg
Djurgarden vs Sirius
Swiss Super League:
Vaduz vs FC Zurich
Lugano vs St. Gallen
Swiss Challenge League:
FC Wil vs Stade Lausanne-Ouchy
Aarau vs Neuchatel Xamax
Grasshopper Zurich vs FC Schaffhausen
Turkish Super Lig:
Gazisehir Gaziantep vs Konyaspor
BB Erzurumspor vs Galatasaray
Istanbul BB vs Antalyaspor
Enjoy your free betting tips!