Lille primed for Marseille showdown

Lille midfielder Florent Balmont is urging his side to repeat last season’s victory at Marseille on Sunday to boost their title challenge.

The champions are third, just four points off the top having gone 17 games unbeaten since the start of the campaign.

Lille won 2-1 at the Stade Velodrome last term on their way to claiming the league title and Balmont urged his side to play for a similar result this season.

“We must not lose. Marseille are just five points behind us. It will be great if we can keep this gap,” Balmont said.

“We should not lose there. It’s always complicated to play at Marseille. But we have the qualities to compete.”

“We played really well against Marseille last year. We hope we can do the same. It will be tough because I’ve always knew Marseille would improve and come back little by little.”

“But we have strengths as well. We have just lost one game so far. We will try to win again this weekend. We know we will have to play well to get points from Marseille.”

Despite their slow start to the season, Lille coach Rudi Garcia recognised that Marseille are not a team to be taken lightly.

“They qualified for the knock-out stages of the Champions League. They’re still in every competition,” Garcia said.

“We know that despite their difficulties at the beginning of the season that they are a team that shouldn’t be underestimated.”

“What is certain is that we went 17 matches without losing – our only defeats came outside of Ligue 1 – we must draw on these good statistics to be confident.”

“We know that when we drew with PSG in Paris we were going to play direct competition (for the title).”

“Now if in fact we are very, very accurate in size. But all wins and no defeats will be a good performance for us, even if we don’t change the way we do things or the way we play.”