Saint-Étienne welcome a struggling Lorient to Stade Geoffroy-Guichard on Sunday afternoon for a match that looks a very winnable one from the perspective of the hosts.
This season, Saint-Étienne have thrived on their own patch and face a Lorient team you’ve found things very tough on the road. There are two bets that stand out here and these are: ‘Saint-Étienne to Win’ and ‘Saint-Étienne to Win & Under 2.5 Goals’ at odds of 1/1 and 3/1 respectively.
Having lost just once, the hosts currently boast Ligue 1’s second best defensive record at home. Christophe Galtier has seen his side concede just five goals in front of a home crowd while they’ve also kept an impressive six clean sheets (in 12 home matches). It would be fair to say that they’ve failed to keep pace with the top teams in terms of goals scored, but their total of 14 at home isn’t too bad, and scoring lots of goals isn’t exactly necessary when you’ve got such a secure back-line.
As they currently sit bottom of the pile in Ligue 1, it’s fair to say that Lorient haven’t exactly enjoyed a fruitful campaign up until this point. The visitors’ form of late has improved slightly with a win and a draw in their last two matches, but against the defensive solidity of Saint-Étienne, they’re unlikely to make much headway. On the road is where Bernard Casoni’s men have really felt the pinch this season. They’ve won just once, losing nine of their other 11, keeping one clean sheet in the process and have failed to score on five occasions. Not exactly inspiring stats.
Although the hosts are very much fancied to come out on top in this fixture, they aren’t really the sort of team to blow the opposition away and are much more accustomed to securing efficient, low-scoring victories. Keeping this in mind, it’s worth combining a Les Verts win with less than three match goals. When push comes to shove, Saint-Étienne get the job done in workman-like fashion – just 25% of their fixtures at Stade Geoffroy-Guichard saw more than two goals go in.
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