Matchday: Lens-Le Mans (Stade Léon-Bollée)

By: Xavier | September 27th, 2009

Lens travels to the lovely city of Le Mans today. More famous for its motor sports than its football people tend to forget that a pretty interesting football club has been making steady progress in Ligue 1 in recent years.

On Sunday MUC will be looking to halt a run of three successive Ligue 1 defeats, while their opponents have also not won in three, but at least in that period they have gathered two points.

The home side won the corresponding league fixture 3-2 last season but also suffered a 5-4 defeat to Lens in the semi-finals of the 2008/9 Coupe de la Ligue after a monster performance by Sidi Keita for the Lensois.

Lens needed extra-time to beat Montpellier 4-3 in the midweek cup action, which frustrated coach Jean-Guy Wallemme.

Wallemme said: “The best way to prepare for the trip to Le Mans was to get past Montpellier. We would have liked to negotiate our way past them with the same result but without the extra-time, but we’re not going to downplay a win.”

Wallemme is wary of the height of the Le Mans players and has warned his players to be careful when defending set-pieces, and to guard against the craft of Anthony Le Tallec and the explosiveness of Modibo Maiga.

He added: “We’ll need to get in the best possible shape to get a result (at Le Mans) because it’s an important match for us – the most important of the week.”

Look for Le Mans to come out strong and go right after the three points early.

Le Groupe Lensois: Kasraoui, Runje; Chelle, El Adoua, Laurenti, Ramos, Sartre, Yahia; Demont, Jemaa, Hermach, Kovacevic, Milovanovic, Sow; Akalé, Boukari, Eduardo, Maoulida, Monnet-Paquet, Jemaa

Le Groupe Manceau: Ovono, Roche ; Baal, Cerdan, Corchia, Geder, Andrade, Louvion, Camara ; Thomas, Goulon, Keita, Estigarribia, Loriot, Sène ; Le Tallec, Maïga, Helstad, Lamah.

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