Auxerre take on the visitors Monaco in the round 16 match of French Ligue 1. The match will be played on Wednesday, December 28th at Stade de l'Abbé-Deschamps (Auxerre)
Auxerre were finally able to return to Ligue 1. This is a popular club that thundered at the end of the last and, in part, the beginning of this century. Here is the only championship, in 1996, and all 4 cup successes in the range of 1994-2005, and the semi-finals in the UEFA Cup. The last surge was in 2010, when I managed to take the “bronze” and then play in the Champions League group. But then there was a full decade that they spent in Ligue 2. And they could have stayed there now, but after the final 3rd place, Auxerre was able to win the promotional play-offs. It is clear that a severe struggle for survival awaited further, and these forecasts are justified. The newcomer in the fall was not hopeless, he even won three times. But 13 points after 15 matches with a terrible 17-31 goal difference brought them only 17th place. And there is only hope that during the pause, Christophe Pelissier and his coaching staff came up with a recipe of improvement.
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AS Monaco managed to have almost identcal deja vu this calendar year, “cloning” 2021 in both good and bad ways. Again, as then, Clement raised his new charges to the “bronze” place – but Niko Kovacs also achieved the same in the previous draw. But the Croatian experienced a setback in the summer of 2021 with Shakhtar Donetsk, and his successor stepped on the same rake this August, but with PSV. And then, already under Philippe Clement, there were rather mediocre results in the championship. At the moment the team has only 8 wins with 4 losses and 27 points in their assets - this allows them to stay only in 6th place, lower than everyone expected. On the other hand, they managed to get into the playoffs of the Europa League, and ahead, at the end of winter, there will be an interesting confrontation with Bayer, which is also strong and popular, but rather unstable in this draw of clubs. So far, the plot of this and the last draw does not coincide in one thing: if Kovacs was fired by the winter, then Clement still holds the post. But it seems that any misfire will be the last one.
Monaco has not lost for 5 matches in a row and won both last head-to-head matches. But after 2013, the teams did not intersect. Auxerre are still a newcomer-outsider, and any ambitious club should take 3 points against them. We believe that the “Monegasques” will succeed.
Prediction for the match: Monaco to win.
