Marseille and Lyon will clash in the biggest game of French Ligue One match-day 13 at the Velodrome on Sunday night.
These two sides are one of the heavyweights of French football but have had to take a back seat as PSG exercise absolute dominance.
Last season was on that saw both of them struggle despite Lyon somehow sealing third spot in the end.
After a promising pre-season, both sides were expected to start strongly but it has not been the case and has also resulted to Lyon firing Sylvinho and replacing him with Rudi Garcia.
Marseille will start the day in 5th spot with 19 points from 12 games.
Without European action, they only have two more trophies to fight for after Monaco eliminated them from the League Cup a few weeks ago.
Realistically, Andre Villas-Boaz’s will find it extremely difficult to match PSG in the League so it leaves them with just the French Cup as a more worthy target for silverware.
A return to Europe is very much still on for them but Marseille will have to start winning consistently that is if they can make it to the champions league or at least Europa League.
This season, they have only won back to back once, when they won three in a raw between late August and mid September.
Form then, they have managed just two victories in their last 7 games. However, they have won two of their last three games with a 4-0 loss against PSG sandwiched between the two victories.
Their last game proved how good a side they can get on a given day as they took care of a Lille side that is so hard to beat.
For Lyon, they are coming off a 3-1 win at home to Benfica in the Champions League. This was their third victory on the trot after winning both of their last two league games.
The influence of Garcia is starting to show as Memphis Depay and Moussa Dembele are now looking like the players they are supposed to be.
In 11th spot with just 12 points, Lyon is still a shadow of the side that everyone expects them to be in terms of placement on the log.
Coming into Sunday’s game, both side have no major injury issues.
Marseille will still be without long-term absentee Florien Thauvin while Lyon are expected to miss the services of Martin Terrier and Fernando Mercal.
Lyon have been dominant in the last few meetings between the two sides, having won all the last four games including a 3-0 victory in the reverse fixture last season.
Marseille’s last victory in this fixtures dates back to May 2014 when they beat Lyon 4-2 at the Velodrome.
Before Marseille hosts Lyon, PSG will be hoping to return to winning ways away to Brest on Saturday afternoon.
After a run of four consecutive victories, Tomas Tuchel’s side was brought back down to earth last weekend as they lost 2-1 away to Dijon.
This was their 3rd loss of the season and it must not have gone down well with the PSG hierarchy.
The Parisians will be expected to come up with a response away to a Brest side has been fairing ok in the last month or so.
The home side head into the fixture on the back of three wins in their last four games and have subsequently climb up the table into 9th position with 17 points.
A win off PSG is unlikely but with a solid defence that has conceded just once in their last four games, Brest will come into the game targeting a point.
PSG are still without the injured Neymar Jr who is expected back after the international break. Neymar is joined on the sidelines by Thiago Silva, Marco Veratti, Ander Herrera, Thilo Kherer and Thomas Munier.
The last time the two sides met, Zlatan Ibrahimovic netted a hat trick as PSG beat Brest 5-2 in 2014. Brest has lost 6 and drawn one of their 7 meetings with PSG and it will take some sort of miracle for them to stop a wounded Parisian side.
The other Ligue One fixtures to look out for include Monaco hosting Dijon on Saturday night, Montpellier at home to Toulouse on Sunday evening and Saint Etienne’s visit to Nantes on the same day.
All Ligue One match-day 13 fixtures
-Nice 1-1 Bordeaux
Saturday, 09-11-2019
-Brest vs PSG @7:30pm
-Monaco vs Dijon @10pm
-Lille vs Metz @10pm
-Reims vs Angers @10pm
-Starsbourg vs Nimes @10pm
Sunday, 10-11-2019
-Rennes vs Amiens @5pm
-Montpellier vs Toulouse @7pm
-Nantes vs Saint Etienne @7pm
-Marseille vs Lyon @11pm
