OL-DFCO: Held once again, OL still have work to do (3-3)

. HIGHLIGHTS .
20’. Fekir scores, following up well after Mendy's effort hit the post Mendy. 1-0.
21’. Big chance for Mariano to double the lead.
23’. Mendy concedes a penalty and Sliti duly converts. 1-1.
44’. Powerful, accurate shot from Kwon.
45+1’. Traoré fires a free-kick over the bar.
47’. Mariano bursts forward and fires over.
50’. Fekir shoots centimetres wide.
52’. Xeka heads Chafik's cross home. 1-2.
60’. Aouar fires Tete's cross home. 2-2.
63’. Mariano converts penalty won by Mendy. 3-2.
64’. Yambéré scores with a header fro ma free-kick. 3-3.
76’. Reynet blocks Fekir's free-kick.
. SUMMARY .
OL had twin objectives after the extremely promising performance in
Paris: maintain the quality of their play while making sure to convert
it into points. Lyon started strongly in this mission, with dangerous
situations for Aouar and Traoré before Dijon began to camp
out in Lyon's half. Fekir was there to get his side on track, tapping
home after Mendy's effort had hit the post. At the origin of the goal,
left-back Mendy was also involved in Dijon's equaliser, giving
away the penalty that Sliti converted from the spot. After a crazy few
minutes, the end of the first half proved more balanced and far less
eventful.
As soon as the second half began, Mariano gave his side a boost by
beating the Dijon defence for pace, but he couldn't get his shot on
target. Fekir also fired centimetres wide. Two chances for OL to take
the lead.. and then one for Xeka who, completely unmarked in the box,
beats Lopes with a header. Their backs to the wall, Lyon responded in
style. Aouar levelled matters as he headed Tete's cross into the back of
the net and Mariano put them back in the lead from the penalty spot.
However, OL didn't have long to savour the fight-back, with Yambéré
imposing himself in the air and leveling minutes later. Four goals in
ten minutes, two for each side, leaving things all square with 20
minutes left. Lyon pushed but clearly lacked cutting edge as the seconds
ticked down. Myziane, Geubbels and Grenier came off the bench to no
avail… OL dropped two more points and have now won just one of their
last six outings in all competitions. They now need to bounce back hard
when they take on Atalanta in Europa League Matchday 2 action on
Thursday.
. THE TURNING POINT .
Mariano misses chance to kill it off
A minute after Nabil Fekir's opener (20'), Mariano
had two chances to widen the gap. Thirty metres out from goal, the OL
striker won possession from Amalfitano before racing towards goal to
take on Reynet… who blocked the shot. The OL number nine pounced on the
rebound but screwed the shot. With a bit ore cutting edge here, OL would
have stopped Dijon from getting back into the picture and the match
would have looked entirely different. But the visitors managed to
weather the storm before equalising from the penalty spot minutes later
(23').
. THE STAT .
The
five previous Ligue 1 Conforama meetings between OL and Dijon yielded
25 goals for an average of five per match. With another six goals on
Saturday evening, the trend continued: matches between these two sides
are barn-burners with plenty of goals. Last season, Bruno Genesio's
players wowed their fans with a 4-2 win at the Groupama Stadium. The
same number of goals… with a very different result.

Expert Eye
Jérémy Berthod :"We can only be angry with
ourselves tonight. We had a chance to double our lead but then we
conceded straight afterwards. We can't do that; losing concentration
like that is deadly. It's infuriating and disappointing. I think it came
down to lack of experience. Sometimes you have know when to hunker down
a bit. When we score, it seems to me we relax a bit and stop defending
as a unit. At any moment in the match, we can concede. Dijon took their
chance tonight. They harassed us and made the most of our defensive
errors to get back into the match. It's disappointing."
TEAMSHEET .
Groupama Stadium, Décines. L1 (W7): OL – Dijon FCO 3-3 (1-1) Referee: Anthony Gautier. Spectators: 33,000. Goals: Fekir (20’), Aouar (60’) et Mariano (pen. 63’) for OL. Sliti (pen. 23’), Xeka (52’) and Yambéré (64’) DFCO. Yellow cards: Yambéré (4’), Amalfitano (40’), Reynet (59’), Rosier (75’) and Saïd (89’) for DFCO. Ndombele (58’) for OL. OL: Lopes – Tete, Marcelo, Morel, Mendy – Tousart (Geubbels, 84’), Ndombele – Traoré, Fekir (cap.), Aouar (Grenier, 86’) – Mariano (Myziane, 78’). Coach: Bruno Genesio. DFCO: Reynet (cap) – Rosier, Djilobodji, Yambéré, Chafik (Haddadi, 71’) – Amalfitano, Xeka, Marié, Kwon (Saïd, 64’), Sliti (Sammaritano, 86’) – Jeannot. Coach: Olivier Dall’Oglio. |
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