Lyon vs Lens prediction: FRANCE: Ligue 1 betting tips on match 2024-03-02 19:45.
Sunday’s Ligue 1 action comes to a close at the home of Lyon, who will enter this clash against Lens with supreme confidence after securing passage to the Coupe de France semi-finals for the second season running in midweek. That feel good factor is backed up by four straight league victories, a return which puts Lyon five points from the top-half and a potentially assailable eight from the top-six ahead of the round.
In fact, those four victories are as many as they managed in 19 prior league games this season (W4, D4, L11) and represents the longest ongoing winning streak ahead of the round. Further closing the gap to the European spots arguably must begin with a win over sixth-placed Lens, and having lost the reverse fixture 3-2, many may fancy them to bounce back as they’ve not posted a losing H2H league double since 1997/98.
Things haven’t been going quite so well for Lens of late given that their current four-game competitive winless run (D2, L2) has seen their foothold within the top-six evaporate to just a single point ahead of the round, whilst is also saw them tumble out of Europe at the expense of Freiburg. That leaves Ligue 1 as Lens’ sole focus for the rest of the campaign at least, where they’ve posted top-seven finishes in every season since their 2020/21 top-flight return.
Playing away from home shouldn’t faze the visitors too much, as they’ve followed up defeats in their opening three away league games of the season by losing just once across the following nine to this point (W4, D4, L1). That solid away league form is backed up by an outright league high seven away clean sheets, yet that’s something they haven’t managed at this venue in three attempts since their latest promotion (L3).
Players to watch: Lyon’s top league scorer Alexandre Lacazette (G12) has curiously never drawn a competitive game against Lens (W4, L4), but he did score in two of his last four league encounters with them. As for Lens, Wesley Saïd has the chance to score in three consecutive Ligue 1 rounds for the first time since 2017/18 here, whilst three of his last four strikes served as team openers.
Hot stat: Lyon have kept four clean sheets in five home league games under the leadership of Pierre Sage.