If Week 14 of the 2009/10 Ligue 1 season took a little while to warm up in terms of 'goals scored', it was well and truly ablaze by the time it ended.
And end it did with the most dramatic game seen in the French top flight for many a long year. Lyon and Marseille faced each other having gained important UEFA Champions League results last week (a 1-1 draw for Lyon over Liverpool and a 6-0 thrashing by Marseille over FC Zurich) while looking to keep pace with Bordeaux at the top of the Ligue 1 table. Click to continue reading...

It's about time we shone our Jeu du Jour spotlight on Auxerre as we look back on Week 11. The only team never to be relegated from France's top flight started off this season as though that might all change, but after a defeat in each of their first three games, they now find themselves unbeaten in eight and up to fifth in the table. Click to continue reading...

All of a sudden, it seems no-one wants to win Ligue 1 this season. Every time a team rises to the top of the pile, they quickly lose their next game and fall from grace again.
Such is the case for Lyon who recently replaced long-standing leaders Bordeaux at the top end of Ligue 1. Their trip to Nice seemed barely troublesome after beating Liverpool in the Champions League last week, but they hadn't accounted for the home side's desperate need for points. Click to continue reading...

Ligue 1 continues to delight and mystify in equal measures. Last weekend's matches saw Bordeaux lose for a second successive match after such a long unbeaten run, and new leaders Lyon lost too but remained on top of the table.
Lyon's lead is down to just a single goal, never mind points. Their main challenger in second spot is Montpellier, a team that finds itself back in the top flight for the first time in five years and looking determined to make it six. Click to continue reading...

As we've been reporting recently on Jeu Du Jour, each of the main contenders for the Ligue 1 title this season have been losing their unbeaten records one by one. Going into last weekend's games, only two were left and one of those, unsurprisingly, was the seemingly unbeatable Bordeaux. Unbeatable, that is, until Saturday when Saint Etienne, of all teams, handed out a 3-1 beating at the Stade Geoffrey-Guichard knocking the French champions off the top spot. Click to continue reading...

Lyon and Marseille are making Bordeaux's Ligue 1 title defence rather too easy this season. While Bordeaux continue to churn out one victory after another (and not always comfortably so), their main title rivals seem all too happy to drop points to ensure a safe passage for Laurent Blanc's men.
Prior to last weekend's matches, four teams had an unbeaten start to 2009/10, but two of them slipped up on Saturday and Sunday. Click to continue reading...

After a sensational run of five league games unbeaten, newly-promoted Montpellier were finally put to the sword in a comprehensive 4-2 defeat away to a virtually full-strength Marseille side on Saturday.
And the good news for Didier Deschamps was that he finally got to see a return on the €18 million invested in Argentinean playmaker Lucho Gonzalez. Click to continue reading...

You know what they say about title-challenging teams: if you can play badly and still win, you've got what it takes to be the champions. The question is, does the reverse apply for relegation-threatened teams?
Grenoble are challenging the theory at the moment, that's for sure. Having played five and lost five so far this season, they've played well more often than not and yet still won nothing for their efforts. Click to continue reading...

Note the day in your diary: Sunday 30th August 2009 – the day Bordeaux's record breaking run of consecutive wins finally came to an end. Not that it saw a change in leader at the top of the Ligue 1 table – Les Girondins' 0-0 draw at Marseille means they remain the team to beat in France.
Bordeaux's run of fourteen back-to-back league wins that started in mid-March 2009 finally ended following a goalless draw at the Stade Velodrome. Click to continue reading...

Of all the three main contenders for this season's Ligue 1 title, only champions Bordeaux now have a 100% record after three games following Marseille's 1-1 draw with Rennes last Saturday.
Didier Deschamps had made a great start to his new career at the Stade Vélodrome following wins over Grenoble and Lille, but Rennes are never the easiest of sides to beat - in fact the equivalent tie finished 4-4 last season. Click to continue reading...

Poor old Marouane Chamakh. He wants to move to a Premier League club, by God he does, but Bordeaux have slapped an enormous price tag on him which has ended the interest of Arsenal and countless other suitors. To his credit, however, Chamakh continues to bang in the goals and at this rate might attract the attentions of someone with rather more money sloshing around in the bank. Click to continue reading...

A new dawn may have risen on Ligue 1 but there was a definite air of 'as you were' about the opening weekend of fixtures in France.
Reigning champions Bordeaux (how nice it is to say that for a change) picked up from where they left off at the end of last season with a 4-1 drubbing of Lens. Click to continue reading...