Mixed fortunes for glamour clubs PSG and Marseille

AFP - 19 January 2008 21:08

PSG´s defender Ceara(L) fights for the ball with Lorient´s forward Rafik Saifi, during their French L1 football match at the Moustoir stadium. St Germain´s fight-back to respectable levels in the French league came to a grinding halt after a frustrating 1-0 defeat to minnows Lorient.

PARIS (AFP) - Marseille beat Valenciennes 3-1 to move into the top half of the French first division on Saturday while a Paris Saint Germain defeat stalled their mini-revival.

PSG's fight-back to respectable levels in the French league came to a grinding halt after a frustrating 1-0 defeat to minnows Lorient.

Winning their past two league games had helped PSG move out of the drop zone towards mid-table, and a 4-0 French League Cup drubbing of Valenciennes with only 10 men in midweek appeared to signal a definitive turnaround.

However, much of the promise shown by Paul Le Guen's men of late failed to materialise against the Brittany side, who grabbed all three points thanks to an own goal by defender Gregory Bourillon.

Lorient now have 30 points from 21 games, and their form appears to be on the up having only been beaten once in their past 10 outings - a fact that will not have escaped Le Guen, who hails from Brittany.

Le Guen later admitted there was no reason to believe that PSG had left the worst behind them.

"Before this match we'd only managed to secure two consecutive league wins so we had no right to get carried away," said the coach, who apportioned some blame to their midweek League Cup efforts.

"We were perhaps a bit tired following our efforts in midweek. At the start of the match we just weren't in it, and we didn't pose any problems to Lorient whatsoever.

"We were too passive, then we conceded a really unlucky goal. We should have done better."

Meanwhile, a brace of goals from Djibril Cisse and another from Julien Rodriguez helped Marseille earn an impressive 3-1 home victory against Valenciennes.

Johan Audel pulled a late goal back for fifth-placed Valenciennes.

Even though Marseille lacked rhythm, Eric Gerets' team rediscovered the form which earned them a run of seven matches without defeat at the end of 2007 which gives hope of a successful second half of the season.

Without striker Mamadou Niang, who is playing in the African Nations Cup, Cisse impressively stepped up to the plate and, as well as scoring two goals, contributed well in terms of his passing and adaptability in switching to the flanks.

Bordeaux's 2-1 win at Le Mans meanwhile meant they jumped into second spot over Nancy, who have a chance to regain second spot should they win at Nice on Sunday.

Lyon, who play at Lens in Sunday's late match, lead the table with 42 points from second placed-Bordeaux, on 39, with Nancy in third spot with 36.