Sunday, January 16, 2022 at 10:46 PM• Dominic Mostert

Sven Botman gave Lille OSC a point against Olympique Marseille on Sunday evening. The defender opened the score early in the away game at Stade Vélodrome, after which Lille was left with ten men due to a red card. Marseille had an hour to turn the score around with one more man, but did not go further than 1-1. France’s number three is two points behind number two OGC Nice and still has a duel to go; Lille is tenth, but extended the unbeaten series in the competition for eight matches.

The Botman, coveted by Newcastle United and AC Milan, was not covered by a corner from Renato Sanches and therefore had room to head into the left corner. Earlier in the opening phase, Marseille unsuccessfully requested a penalty after contact between Benjamin André and Gerson, while Burak Yilmaz encountered keeper Pau López with a deflected long shot. After the opening goal, López cleverly saved a header from Burak, after which fellow goalkeeper Ivo Grbic prevented Dimitri Payet from making it 1-1.

After half an hour, Lille had to continue with ten men. In the space of two minutes, André was shown a yellow card for demonstrating and for a foul on Mattéo Guendouzi, forcing the midfielder to leave the game prematurely. Marseille wanted to increase the pressure to ten men, but did not create any serious chances in the first half. Lille became even more threatening with a long shot from Jonathan Bamba, which was parried by López. In the second half, Marseille had an enormous predominance of ball possession, but it took a long time before the home team took flight.

Marseille even got away well twenty minutes before the end when a goal from Burak was rejected because he would have been just offside. On the other side, Arek Milik poked just over the goal with an outstretched foot, before a placed shot by Cengiz Ünder resulted in the equalizer after a short corner. A poeier from Gerson flew just wide of Lille’s goal, while a header from Luan Peres didn’t lead to the liberating 2-1 either. l’OM. In stoppage time William Saliba and Gerson were also close to the winning goal, but Lille held out.

No. Team m W G V +/- Pnt
1 Paris Saint Germain 21 15 5 1 24 50
2 OGC Nice 21 12 4 5 16 39
3 Olympique Marseille 20 10 7 3 12 37
4 Stade Rennes 21 10 4 7 21 34
5 AS Monaco 21 9 6 6 10 33
6 RC Lens 21 9 6 6 7 33
7 Strasbourg 20 9 5 6 14 32
8 Montpellier 20 9 4 7 7 31
9 Nantes 21 8 5 8 1 29
10 Lille OSC 20 7 8 5 0 29
11 Olympique Lyon 20 7 8 5 1 28
12 Angers 20 6 8 6 -1 26
13 Stade Brest 21 6 7 8 -7 25
14 Reims 21 5 9 7 -1 24
15 Metz 21 4 7 10 -17 19
16 Clermont 20 4 6 10 -16 18
17 Troyes AC 20 4 5 11 -11 17
18 lorient 20 3 8 9 -16 17
19 Girondins de Bordeaux 21 3 8 10 -20 17
20 Saint Etienne 20 2 6 12 -24 12