Having reignited their Champions League bid in style last weekend, Lens return to home comforts at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis to tackle crisis club Angers in Saturday's Ligue 1 battle.
Franck Haise's side put four past Clermont without reply in their most recent battle, while Les Scoistes' turbulent period continued with a 2-0 loss to Toulouse under new management.
Match preview
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When one thinks of four-minute hat-tricks, Robbie Fowler will normally be the first name that springs to mind, but Lens forward Lois Openda can now enter that exclusive conversation following his own terrific treble during a 4-0 thumping of Clermont.
Taking advantage of the hosts' defensive lapses, Openda broke the deadlock after 30 minutes and would be taking the match ball home with just 35 minutes on the clock, with a matter of seconds separating his second and third strikes at the Stade Gabriel-Montpied.
Having snapped an 11-game scoring streak in astonishing fashion, Openda then turned provider for Alexis Claude-Maurice to finish the mauling in the second half, as Les Sang et Or emphatically returned to winning ways following low-scoring draws with Montpellier HSC and Lille.
Consistency has been difficult to come by for the much-admired Haise, who had recently strayed away from his acclaimed three-man defence, but Lens remain in the driving seat for Champions League football, sitting in third place in the table and three points better off than Monaco.
Barely recognisable from the team competing in the doldrums of Ligue 2 back in 2019-20, Lens enter the weekend as the second-best performing home team in Ligue 1 this term - and even then Paris Saint-Germain have only collected one more point on their own turf - which spells another miserable afternoon for relegation-bound Angers.
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As if results on the field were not bad enough, Angers' season reached a new low when now-fired manager Abdel Bouhazama downplayed the seriousness of sexual assault allegations against left-back Ilyes Chetti, as Alexandre Dujeux tried to restore some sense of parity when taking the reins against Toulouse.
However, Les Scoistes experienced no sort of new manager bounce under the 47-year-old, as goals in either half from Mikkel Desler and Thijs Dallinga sealed a comfortable two-goal win for Toulouse and seemingly just sped up Angers' descent to the second tier.
Boasting a paltry 10 points from their 27 matches this season, Angers remain rooted to the bottom of the standings and have 13 points to make up if they are to clamber away from danger - an ostensibly impossible task as the losses continue to stack up.
Since putting their 10th and most recent point on the board in February's draw with Auxerre, Les Scoistes have suffered four successive defeats in Ligue 1 and have only found the back of the net once in their last eight top-flight away games, scoring just seven on rival territory all season.
Somewhat surprisingly, Angers have managed to avoid defeat in their two games at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis since Lens earned promotion in 2020 - drawing 2-2 last season after a 3-1 win in November 2020 - but Haise'e men have since picked up a pair of 2-1 victories at the Stade Raymond Kopa.
Team News
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Still without the services of Jean Louis Leca, Wesley Said, Steven Fortes and Adam Buksa, Lens ought to continue with their newly-established four man backline given the added absence of Facundo Medina, who may not recover from a knee injury for another month.
Left-back Massadio Haidara came off at half time during the win over Clermont, but Haise confirmed that the alteration was simply a precautionary measure after he picked up a booking just before the break.
Haidara should therefore continue to keep Deiver Machado at bay, but Claude-Maurice's effort may not be enough to earn him a place in the first XI over the likes of ex-Angers man Angelo Fulgini and Adrien Thomasson.
As for Angers, midfielder Nabil Bentaleb is available once more after serving a suspension during the defeat to Toulouse, while Chetti was left out of the squad for that game amid the recent allegations.
Farid El Melali reportedly came off with an injury late on against Toulouse, joining Faouzi Ghoulam, Ali Kalla and Ulrick Eneme-Ella in the medical bay as Abdoulaye Bamba waits in the wings.
Bentaleb's return could tempt Dujeux into switching to a four-man backline, although the ex-Tottenham Hotspur man could very well just take the place of Himad Abdelli.
Lens possible starting lineup:
Samba; Frankowski, Danso, Gradit, Haidara; Abdul Samed, Fofana; Thomasson, Fulgini; Sotoca, Openda
Angers possible starting lineup:
Bernardoni; Bamba, Valery, Hountondji, Blazic, Doumbia; Bentaleb, Mendy; Capelle; Sima, Hunou
We say: Lens 3-0 Angers
The Stade Bollaert-Delelis is not quite the fortress it once was for Lens earlier in the campaign, but they should encounter few obstacles en route to a comfortable win this weekend.
With Angers mired in turmoil on and off the field, a reignited Openda can feast alongside his Champions League-chasing teammates, and keeping the scoreline respectable should be the visitors' primary goal here.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
Top tip
Ben Knapton
