Lorient vs Lille Prediction - Will Lille Be Able To Secure The Third Place On Their Visit To Lorient?

Next Saturday, Lille will travel to Brittany to measure forces with Lorient at the Stade du Moustoir for the last round of the French Ligue 1 on a match that the Les Dogues need to win in order to secure the third place of the league table and to avoid any last minute annoying upset.

Last weekend, Lille didn’t find a way to defeat the already coronated Ligue 1 champions of Paris SG at Stade Pierre-Mauroy and ended up sucumbing at the hands of the Parisians 3-1. For a greater part of the match, Lille played with just ten man after Marvin Martin was sent off on the 37th minute of the first-half, something that had a clear influence on the match’s final outcome. Until last weekend, Lille had been enjoying a fantastic run of matches without a single defeat. The last time the team had lost a match was back in February, where they lost 1-0 to Nice.

Les Dogues’ next match at Lorient is of paramount importance for the team, since in case of defeat they might seriously compromise the excellent work they produced this season. If Lille fail to grant a place at the UEFA Champions League, such will represent a major blow to the players and to their manager René Girard, who accomplished a very interesting work this season.

For the match against Lorient, René Girard will not be able to rely on the team’s number 10 Marvin Martin, who was sent off against Paris SG last weekend, although apart from him, he will probably have the entire team at his disposal.

As for Lorient, next Saturday’s match might constitute their third win in a row after an impressive 1-0 win against Lyon last weekend. Les Merlus are a tough bone to chew when playing at home and Lille will need to be at their best if they to grab something positive from last Saturday’s match. Lorient has only been defeated three times at home this season and they will surely try to extend their fine home form next weekend against Lille. Les Merlus are on a seven match row without defeats and the last time they were defeated at home was back in March by the hand of the current French champions.

For the match against Les Dogues, Christian Gourcuff (father of Lyon’s skilled midfielder Yoann Gourcuff) will have several headaches to build his team. Yann Jouffre, Enzo Reale, Maxime Baca, Sadio Diallo, Lamine Koné and Gilles Sunu will all probably miss the match due to injury, while Kévin Monnet-Paquet will definitely be sidelined since he was sent off against Lyon last weekend.

When both sides met at Stade Pierre-Mauroy back in August, Lille obtained a narrow 1-0 win thanks to an early goal by Divock Origi. Although they are favourites for next Saturday’s clash, Les Dogues will definitely need to create something very special if they want to defeat a strong and well organized Lorient.

Lorient

Stats: W-13 L-14 D-10

Recent Form - WDDWW

Lille

Stats: W-19 L-7 D-11

Recent Form - WDWDL

Possible Line-ups

Lorient (4-3-3) - Chaigneau - Bourillon - Guerreiro - Lautoa - Gassama - Coutadeur - Pelé - Doulouré - Traoré - Aliadière - Robert

Lille (4-4-2) - Enyeama - Beria - Kjaer - Sidibe - Basa - Meite - Gueye - Mavuba - Delaplace - Kalou - Roux

Prediction

Lorient 1 Lille 1