It's been a while since we've seen this convincing and conquering OGC Nice, the one which rose to 2nd place in Ligue 1 for a good part of the first half of the season. But this Friday evening, at the opening of the 30th day of Ligue 1, it was these Aiglons who did what was necessary to stay alive in the race for Europe by soundly beating FC Lorient (3-0).
Morgan Sanson very quickly opened the scoring in the middle of the first period with a nice shot under the bar of Mvogo (1-0, 22nd), then was followed by Boga (2-0, 53rd) and Guessand (3-0 , 89th) during the second to offer this great victory to the Nissards. A festival and a victory by three goals, a first for these people of Nice in more than a year. The Aiglons, who had won only one of their previous 9 matches, remain 5th but temporarily come back to 2 points behind Lille, 4th.
“This victory does a lot of good, we were still experiencing failures at home so we were keen to do that in front of our supporters,” reacted Gaëtan Laborde on Prime Video. If the Champions League is still achievable? Let's make sure we're European, already. This is our initial objective, then we will see at the end of the season. We had ups and downs, hoping that this victory would take us forward. »
“It’s been a long time, we wanted to win here at home and find these images of joy,” agreed Melvin Bard, also on Prime. The first places are not that far away, but we are coming off a bad series so we don't look at the ranking, we just want to string together victories. We will see the ranking at the end. »
“We really want to stay in Ligue 1”
The obvious joy of the people of Nice and the beautiful scenes of communion with the public contrasted with the gloom reigning in the Lorient camp. The Merlus, with this big defeat, move to 17th in the standings behind FC Metz, with the same number of points but a worse goal difference. More than ever, it is the club's retention in Ligue 1 which is in danger and Metz (16th, 26 pts) and Le Havre (15th, 28 pts) can take off.
“It’s difficult to talk after this match, a defeat in this period when we need points is difficult to swallow,” reacted Lorient midfielder Tiémoué Bakayoko on Prime Video. We leave disappointed, frustrated but we faced a great Nice team. We will have to fight, raise our heads and score points. This defeat hurts, it's difficult to live with. We play for an entire club, its employees and we really want to stay in Ligue 1.”