St Etienne take on the visitors Nice at “Stade Geoffroy-Guichard” in the opening matchday of the French Ligue 1 of 2017/2018 season. The game will be played in Saint-Etienne on Saturday, August 5th.
At the end of last season St Etienne lost three consecutive encounters with the 1:10 aggregated score and settled on the eighth place in the Ligue 1 standings with 50 points taken and 41-42 goal difference. This summer “Les Verts” have replaced the head-coach and appointed Oscar Garcia at that position, besides they engaged new performers: Jorginho and Lois Diony for one and 8.5 million EUR respectively. Kévin Malcuit has also left the club for decent nine million EUR.
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Nice finished last season on the third place having picked up 78 points with 63-36 goal difference. This summer Lucien Favre’s club managed to save its leaders successfully and is ready to conquer the Eurocups. During the summer break “Les Aiglons” have conducted five battles getting four victories and single defeat in them as well as one match in the UEFA Champions League, having gained 1:1 draw against Ajax at their home field.
Nice have won their last four head-to-heads against St Etienne with 8:1 aggregated score. Usually there are not many goals combined in the encounters between these two teams - on average two goals per game. “Les Verts” built up their football philosophy on defense in recent seasons while Nice are to play a tough clash in Amsterdam next Wednesday, therefore, I wouldn’t expect high speed in the Saturday fight, especially bearing in mind that it is only start of the season which doesn’t encourage for playing on maximum speed.
Prediction for the match: Under 2.5 scored goals.
