Lorient finished above Lens when they got promoted in 2020, however they endured very different first seasons in Ligue 1. Lorient finished two points above the relegation zone in 16th, while a tough run-in playing all three title challengers saw Lens narrowly miss out on European football in seventh.
Franck Haise made two changes to the team that beat Monaco, with Przemyslaw Frankowski and Yannick Cahuzac coming in for Deiver Machado and the suspended Cheick Doucouré. Lens also returned to their usual 3-4-1-2 formation after switching to a 3-5-2 against Monaco.
Christophe Pélissier made two changes too after Lorient lost to Montpellier last week. Thomas Monconduit and Léo Pétrot came in for Enzo Le Fée and the suspended Houboulang Mendes but Lorient kept with their 3-5-2 shape.
Lens controlled the early stages of the match. They were building up in a 3-1-5-1 shape, with Seko Fofana pushing up to join Gaël Kakuta between the lines and Florian Sotoca dropping off to do the same to Kakuta’s right, Frankowski and Jonathan Clauss pushing up to provide width and Ignatius Ganago leading the line in attack.
Lorient dealt with this by trying to stop Lens from getting the ball to those players between the lines. One way was to have Armand Laurienté and Terem Moffi drop off and crowd Cahuzac, however this opened up space ahead of the outside centre-backs to push forward. Lens failed to really punish this, but Lorient still rarely took the risk.
Instead typically Laurienté and Moffi would split wide to each pick up Jonathan Gradit and Facundo Medina while a midfielder would push forward to get tight to Cahuzac – first it was Fabien Lemoine, but this quickly changed to Monconduit.
Lens still managed to play around this though. The big obvious issue was that by splitting wide, Lorient left Kevin Danso free in the centre to pick out passes into the forwards, while Gradit’s comfort on the ball also allowed him to push forward on the ball through the centre, drawing his teammates’ markers across to him to free them up before offloading the ball to them.
Sotoca’s willingness to drop deep also meant he would pick up the ball in space and move it on to a teammate. With Monconduit pulled forward, this left just two Lorient midfielders to mark three Lens men between the lines, so Sotoca generally wouldn’t be followed. As a result, Lens didn’t really have any problems progressing the ball.
Lorient also had some success building up though. Lens initially had some success pressing by having Kakuta push up alongside the strikers, matching the Lorient centre-backs three-versus-three to force Lorient long. However, Lemoine soon started dropping in to help the centre-backs play out, and Laurent Abergel would sometimes join him too.
Kakuta started to pick up Lemoine instead, with Pétrot going free on the right, picking up the ball in space out wide and advancing down the wing. Lens dealt with this by having Fofana shift across to the left flank to confront Pétrot, while Medina would step up into midfield and Danso shifted across to close the gap Medina left, converting to a back four. It seemed like quite a complicated fix that could easily go wrong, but Lens were well-organised, with each of Fofana, Medina and Danso showing an appropriate wariness of the greater structure.
Lens opened the scoring with a free-kick won by Frankowski racing inside to receive a lay-off from Fofana, panicking Igor Silva into a challenge on the Pole. Clauss converted the resulting set piece.
Lorient replied immediately though. They pushed up to press without actually putting any pressure on the ball, allowing Julien Laporte to dink a pass over the top to Abergel completely free in space between the lines. Gradit stepped up to pressure him before realising he couldn’t get anywhere close and Abergel picked out a pass into the space Gradit had left, with Laurienté making a run in behind to finish.
They then took the lead shortly after. Winning the ball back in the opposition half from a Lens throw, Monconduit fed the ball to Moffi to hold up then received the lay-off back from him, squeezing it inside the near post from outside the box. It was a disappointing goal for Jean-Louis Leca to concede, although he probably only saw it late.
In the second half, Fofana in particular stayed a bit deeper to help ease the process of Lens playing out, joining Cahuzac in the deeper midfield before pushing forward to join the attack. Kakuta acted much like Sotoca had in the first half, dropping back on occasion to help out, but Fofana had a more consistent role. These midfielders also had more space as Lorient started to defend much more in a 5-3-2 shape rather than pushing a midfielder forward to get tight to Cahuzac.
They also committed to pressing in Lorient’s half far more. Monconduit, Lemoine and Abergel all took turns dropping back to help Lorient’s centre-backs play out, rotating in midfield, yet, needing the ball, Lens were more willing to push their wing-backs and Cahuzac forward to support the press. This saw them repeatedly win the ball in Lorient’s half.
Lens equalised with twenty minutes to go. Sotoca dropped deep to play the ball out to Clauss and the wing-back beat Vincent Le Goff with a turn, before combining with Sotoca again in attack. This got four Lens players running at Lorient’s back three. Clauss squared the ball to the free Kakuta only for him to scuff his shot as Lemoine got back to support his defence, however Fofana flicked up the loose ball and span to volley it home with his weaker foot. Truthfully, it was a goal built from the individual talents of Clauss, Sotoca and Fofana rather than any strategy from Lens.
It was another decent performance by Lens that saw them continue their undefeated start to the season, but it was also another match they probably should have been winning undone by conceding cheap goals.
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