Strasbourg returned to the fight for European places by winning the Eastern Derby 2-0 on the lawn of a courageous but decimated Metz team, Sunday during the 20th day of Ligue 1. Ludovic Ajorque, the top scorer of the RCSA, offered a deserved victory to the Alsatians by scoring shortly after the return of the locker room (50th), before offering a caviar to Jean-Eudes Aholou (90th + 1).
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Ligue 1 fixtures and results
League 1 standings
The Strasbourg, who remained on two defeats, one in the league against Marseille and one in the Coupe de France in Montpellier, resumed their march forward and now total 29 points. Julien Stéphan's players are temporarily up to seventh place in the standings with two units behind fourth, Rennes, but a late match that they will play on January 19 in Clermont.
Deprived of seven players who left for the African Cup of Nations in Cameroon (Farid Boulaya, Alexandre Oukidja, Habib Maïga, Boubakar Kouyaté, Sofiane Alakouch, Pape-Matar Sarr and Dylan Bronn), the Garnets somehow resisted the waves Alsatian but ended up cracking. After this tenth setback of the season, the Messins fall back to penultimate place with only 16 points, ahead of the goal difference (-18 against -16) by Lorient, who did not play in Lille on Saturday due to many cases of Covid in its workforce.
From the start of the meeting, Racing confiscated the ball, forcing the Mosellans to run a lot and to proceed against. The Strasbourg's first opportunity did not take long to intervene, but Gerzinho Nyamsi found the crossbar, then Ajorque ran into Marc Aurèle Caillard, before Adrien Thomasson sent his recovery over (9th).
Sanjin Prcic then narrowly missed the frame (29th), just like Thomasson (35th), while Kevin Gameiro had the ball stolen in the area when hitting (42nd).
From the resumption, Ajorque showered the hopes of Metz by scoring his tenth goal of the season in L1 (0-1, 50th).
Metz tried to react but in a disorderly manner, while the RCSA, well in place, pushed and ended up being rewarded in added time on a new header from Aholou (0-2, 90th + 1).
