Ligue 1 Predictions: Round 4: Rennes host Lyon, as OM look to bounce back | OneFootball

Ligue 1 Predictions, Round 4

GFFN editor-in-chief  Luke Entwistle, and sub-editors Raphaël Jucobin and Bastien Cheval face off in our Ligue 1 predictions competition. This season, GFFN will also be hosting guests. Last week, The Athletic’s Alex Barker participated and is the first name on our guest leaderboard. It’s three points for a correct score, two points for a correct score difference, and one point for a correct result. Who will come out on top at the end of the season?

SCORES

Raphaël: 23

Luke: 17

Bastien: 28

Guest leaderboard:

Alex Barker: 7

Game of the week: Stade Rennais v Olympique Lyonnais, Sunday 19:45 (UK)

After a really strong start, beating Marseille, despite going down to 10 men at the 30-minute mark, Rennes have dropped off. A 4-0 loss to local rivals Lorient, which came after two red cards in the opening 11 minutes, was followed up by an underwhelming 1-1 draw to Angers. The disappointing aspect of that game was that Rennes didn’t really create the chances to deserve any more than what they got. As we said before the start of the season, this is now, on paper, a strong squad, but all eyes will be on the manager and whether he is capable of delivering on the increased expectations this season. The signs during the opening gameweeks aren’t exactly positive.

Other than PSG, Lyon are the only other side to win their first three games of the season. On top of that, they are currently the only side in Ligue 1 to have not yet conceded a goal. It is an impressive start from Paulo Fonseca’s side, coming after a summer in which everyone doubted their capacity to lodge a European charge, given the financial situation and subsequent exodus of star players. But Fonseca has insisted that what has been done in the off-season has created a “coherent” squad, and that has certainly shown in the opening games. Their latest win, against Marseille just before the international break, was helped by an early red card to CJ Egan-Riley, but even in the opening knockings, OL looked strong. Their success will be predicated on their defensive solidity and capacity to score the odd goal. Goal-scoring will be an issue that raises its head at one point, following Georges Mikautadze’s deadline day departure, but against a Rennes side that is looking defensively fragile, it may not be an issue that reveals itself this weekend.

Raphael’s Ligue 1 predictions

Luke’s predictions

Bastien’s predictions

GFFN | Luke Entwistle