From the start of the afternoon, it was Lorient which offered itself one of the bargains of the 22nd day of Ligue 1 by winning on the Strasbourg pitch at Meinau (1-3).
This success, which does a lot of good, was started by the man of winter on the Lorient side: the Ivorian Mohamed Bamba.
Since his arrival this winter from Austrian club Wolfsberger, Bamba has scored in every match.
Against Strasbourg, he only waited seventy seconds to open the score, taking advantage of a hand fault from Strasbourg goalkeeper Alaa Bellarouch who released the ball.
5 - They have more goals than matches in Ligue 1 this season:
🔵🔴Kylian Mbappé (21 goals, 20 matches)
🟠Mohamed Bamba (5 goals, 4 matches) 🆕
Clinique.
#RCSAFCL pic.twitter.com/A8PiOptm1k
— OptaJean (@OptaJean) February 18, 2024
At that moment, Bamba equaled a 50-year-old record by becoming the first player to find the net in each of his first four Ligue 1 matches since… Strasbourg's Giora Spiegel in October 1973. To celebrate this record, Bamba even scored twice during added time in the first period.
In the end, Lorient, thanks to a third goal from Ponceau, won largely despite Guibert's reduction in the score.
Rennes continues at its pace
Another Breton club also stood out.
Rennes, without really trembling, offered themselves a sixth consecutive success in L1 against Clermont (3-1).
Led by a Martin Terrier who has regained all his physical means and author of a double, the Rennes team moves up to seventh place.
Conversely, his victim of the day, Clermont, sinks to last place in the ranking.
With sixteen points in twenty-two matches, the future of the Auvergnats among the Elite seems more and more fragile.
For its part, Monaco can also make a face.
The principality's team missed a big opportunity to become runner-up to PSG even if it was twelve lengths behind the Parisians.
But against Toulouse at home, the Monegasques surprisingly stumbled (1-2) even though they had been undefeated for a month.
Toulouse took advantage of this in particular with the first goal in Ligue 1 from defender Logan Costa who had already been the hero of the last Coupe de France final with his surprising double against Nantes (5-1).
Montpellier regains the win
Another smile, that of the Montpellier residents, clear winners of Metz (3-0) and who put an end to a series of five unsuccessful matches in L1 (3 defeats, 2 draws) since a success in… Metz (1-0), on December 17 last.
At the end of the afternoon, the Lensois traveled to Reims after their draw (0-0) against Friborg in the Europa League on Thursday evening.
At the end of a very dull first period, the locals opened the scoring in the 41st thanks to Oumar Diakité, scorer a week after winning the African Cup of Nations.
While the Auguste-Delaune stadium thought it would see Will Still's men return to the locker room in the lead, Wesley SaĂŻd came to shower the Reims public with a headed goal, superbly served by Frankowski just before the break.
Okumu's yellow card gets people talking
Upon returning from the locker room, Reims was very hot.
First at the time of Joseph Okumu's much too strong tackle on Frankowski, for which the Reims defender only received a yellow card, even after the confirmation of the VAR.
Then in the process, when Fulgini's shot is deflected not by Munetsi's arm in the area, but by his torso.
In the 66th minute, Oumar Diakité missed the double during his face-to-face with Brice Samba, failing to target his shot.
Two minutes later, it was Fulgini's turn to miss the target, too, crossing his shot too much.
Both teams will have shown their desire to win until the end, without success.
After three straight victories in the league, Lens is no better than a draw (1-1) and remains sixth in Ligue 1, one point behind Brest before the match against Marseille this Sunday evening.
For its part, Stade de Reims continues a fourth match without a victory and is in eighth place, just ahead of OM.