Odsonne Édouard’s Lens gamble pays off as he revisits PSG roots | OneFootball

Odsonne Édouard returns to the Parc des Princes on Wednesday at 21:00 to face his formative club PSG, eight months after Lens kick-started his revival there. Coach Pierre Sage hopes the striker can play even more next season.

"I would love to see a 'gamble' who has played the Champions League and Europa League and scored in the Premier League, someone with 100-plus goals. That annoyed me a bit. I was, quote unquote, undervalued, maybe underestimated," he told Onze Mondial.

Lens signed the 28-year-old in early September for €3.7m to 2028 after a barren year at Leicester. He left France at 19 in 2017, then struck 87 in 179 for Celtic.

His first Lens outing also came at PSG on 14 September, a 0-2 defeat. He properly restarted by scoring at Auxerre on 4 October in a 2-1 win, ending 18 months without a goal.

Édouard leads Lens with 12 Ligue 1 goals and three assists, and has clicked with Adrien Thomasson, who owns 10 league assists and has supplied three of his goals.

Sharper in his pressing and tidy in build-up, he averages 0.62 goals per 90, though a knee niggle coincides with six without scoring. He had no shot in Friday’s 1-0 win over Nantes.

He toasted Champions League qualification and could return to it nine years on, after two Celtic outings in 2017. Laurent Bonadei urges high standards and Jean-Louis Leca hails his calm. Lens face Nice in the Coupe de France final on 22 May.

Source: L'Équipe