DCINES CHARPIEU: AS Monaco made it back-to-back wins to start their Ligue 1 campaign in style on Saturday as they outclassed Olympique Lyonnais 2-0 on the road at the Groupama Stadium.

Teenager Eliesse Ben Seghir capped a very fine performance with the opener midway through the second half, before Lamine Camara struck to secure the three points for the away side.

Lyon have had another difficult beginning to their league campaign and, after going down 3-0 at Rennes last weekend, have now shipped five goals in the opening two matches after being the form side of Ligue 1 in 2024.

“It’s incredible, we’d never won here,” said Ben Seghir.

“We won by two goals, it’s the third match where we’ve kept a clean sheet (including a friendly against Barcelona), that shows the way we play.”

Things started poorly for the hosts when they were forced into an early change after forward Ernest Nuamah appeared to pull a muscle and was replaced by new signing Georges Mikautadze.Monaco put extreme pressure but couldn’t break through Lyon’s defences in the first half. But Monaco pressure soon told and inevitably it was Ben Seghir and Maghnes Akliouche that caused the breakthrough on 65 minutes.

The 19-year-old zipped a pass into Akliouche, who then returned the favour before Ben Seghir shifted the ball onto his right foot in very little space and threaded a cute finish into the far corner.

Camara then put the match to bed as a contest in the 80th minute when he swept in unmarked at the back post to finish emphatically from Kassoum Ouattara’s cross.

A dampener was put on Monaco’s day at the very end, however, when Camara picked up a second yellow for a late challenge.

Meanwhile, Lille maintained their 100 per cent record this season by beating newly-promoted Angers 2-0 thanks to goals either side of the break from Thomas Meunier and Mohamed Bayo.

Meunier’s crisp outside-of-the-foot finish capped off a period of extended possession by the hosts in the 34th minute.

Bayo then put paid to any hopes Angers had of nicking a first point of the campaign when he doubled Lille’s lead in the fifth minute of stoppage time.

In Saturday’s final match, Saint-Etienne lost 2-0 to Le Havre after an Abdoulaye Toure penalty and an Arouna Sangante header inside the space of 10 second-half minutes gave the visitors their first victory of the season.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2024