Seeking to cap off 2021 in grand style, Ligue 1 leaders Paris Saint-Germain visit Stade du Moustoir to face off against Lorient on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the home side head into the game off the back of eight consecutive defeats across all competitions and will be looking to end this barren run of results.
Match preview
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PSG saw off the threat of lower league side Feignies-Aulnoye in a convincing 3-0 victory on Sunday to move into the next round of Coupe de France.
Mauricio Pochettino's men took a commanding two-goal lead inside the opening half hour thanks to penalties from Kylian Mbappe and Mauro Icardi before Mbappe put the result beyond doubt with his second of the game six minutes into the second half.
Les Parisiens now return to league action, where they are unbeaten since October and currently possess a 13-point lead at the top of the standings.
Their next task sees them go up against an opposing side who have won just one of the previous 13 meetings between the teams since 2013, losing each of the remaining 12.
However, that solitary victory came in the most recent encounter back in January when Wednesday's visitors fell to a 3-2 loss thanks to a late strike from Terem Moffi.
Lorient were dumped out of the French Cup courtesy of a 1-0 defeat to Rennes at the Roazhon Park on Saturday.
Defender Warmed Omari opened his account for the season in the 21st minute and that was enough to put Christophe Pelissier's men to the sword.
This comes off the back of seven straight league defeats for Les Merlus, who are 19th in the Ligue 1 table at the moment, albeit just one point away from safety.
A major Achilles' heel for Wednesday's hosts so far has been their toothlessness in attack as they have only managed to find the back of the net a league-low 14 times.
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Team News
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Marco Verratti and Kylian Mbappe received their fifth yellow cards of the season against Monaco and will both serve a one-game suspension in this one.
Neymar remains sidelined with an ankle injury and is also unavailable for the visitors alongside Julian Draxler, who has not featured since November due to a muscle problem.
With both Nuno Mendes and Juan Bernat doubtful, 25-year-old Abdou Diallo is set to fill in at left-back, joining Sergio Ramos, Marquinhos and Achraf Hakimi in front of Keylor Navas.
The duo of Fabien Lemoine and Jeremy Morel are guaranteed absentees for Lorient as they continue to battle with calf and muscle injuries respectively.
Stephane Diarra's availability is hanging in the balance after he was forced off with a knock 12 minutes into his side's last outing.
Lorient possible starting lineup:
Nardi; Jenz, Laporte, Mendes, Le Goff, Silva; Ouattara, Abergel, Le Fee, Boisgard; Moffi
Paris Saint-Germain possible starting lineup:
Navas; Hakimi, Ramos, Marquinhos, Diallo; Gueye, Wijnaldum, Paredes; Messi, Icardi, Di Maria
We say: Lorient 0-2 Paris Saint-Germain
PSG have a number of key players missing but should still have too much quality for a struggling Lorient side. We fancy the away team to secure all three points with relative ease at the end of the 90 minutes.
Top tip
Adepoju Marvellous
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Paris Saint-Germain win with a probability of 67.97%. A draw had a probability of 18.6% and a win for Lorient had a probability of 13.39%.
The most likely scoreline for a Paris Saint-Germain win was 0-2 with a probability of 11.19%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 0-1 (10.09%) and 1-2 (9.76%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (8.8%), while for a Lorient win it was 1-0 (3.97%). The actual scoreline of 1-1 was predicted with an 8.8% likelihood.
