Auxerre played on Monday at Ligue 1 bound Brest, ahead of which my notes spoke about what the season now held for them and their injury situation............

 

Auxerre we earmarked as much better than their early season position indicated, they had bought well and had a big budget and potential, they started to fulfill all that, but had a lot of ground to make up and their free scoring ways have deserted them, failing to score in their last two starts and against the bottom two teams in L2 after 11 goals in three starts previously..............no one said football always had to make sense !

They are without players too today, CB Samuel Souprayen (just two goals conceded in his last ten starts !), fellow CB Abdoul Ba with a long term injury (Souprayen was converted from RB to cover) and young central defender Jean Marcelin. That leaves just two available CB's at the club, 37 yo Mickael Tacalfred who is a regular and Francois Bellugou, who has been out of favour (lost 6/12 when he plays), the four games Auxerre have won when he was in the team came when he as alongside either Souprayen or Ba, not Tacalfred. Auxerre are 12th , would only move up to 11th with the win, but would be within six of the playoffs, albeit with a lot of teams betweem them and top 5. They are 10 points clear of the drop zone, so no fears in that regard, so a point is kind of worthless and they surely have to look to win. They also look vulnerable at the back and are better on the road after the break , they have a 0 FH goal difference, a good +4 through the second 45 minutes. Infact, home and away they have the best GD outside of the top 5 (+8).

 

 

They lost that 1-0 and now have, in additon, the quick turnaround to deal with, including the long cross country trip to Brest and back, about 14 hours by road total. On the plus side, Souprayen can return to the backline.

Clermont have a much smaller budget, about 40% of that of the home side, but almost always tend to use it wisely and are more likely to push for promotion than really flirt with relegation and have finished between 5th and 14th for 10 straight seasons in L2 an amazing stat, which includes 5 top 5-7 finishes and five between 12-14 , currently 7th, six points adrift of 4th, 8 above the team in 15th, it looks very much like more of the same. They, like Auxerre are also in a bit of a mini blip, they have taken just a point fron their last three (two against bottom five teams) and have scored just once in that trio of games .

With both team struggling and finding goals hard to come by, it is easy to see this being close and there have been just 11 goals in the last six h2h metings in Auxerre, with just a single home win. We can make a case now for the game having more value for Clermont and they should strip the fresher of the two. The visitors have been fortunate with injuries with a very settled squad, 11 of whom have been in the matchday group 24+ times, they were left crestfallen by a 1-0 home defeat to Valenciennes last week where they misfired infront of goal, failing to take advantage of 21 attempts on goal, 14 on target and, approaching 650 passes, some 200-250 above the L2 average ! I am expecting a reaction and like them today off level ball.

 

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