Coupe de France: Sochaux- AS Monaco

 

I do not doubt that Sochaux will be up for this, in what is a brief return to the "big time" and a chance to forget their Ligue 2 woes and there have been many of them , for 90 minutes. The hosts struggled like many teams with the adjustment to life in L2 following relegation, but showed enough last season for many to tip them as promotion favourites this time round, but things have gone from bad to worse and with 13 matches left to play, they are in big trouble with only woeful Paris FC below them in the table and goals proving very hard to come by , just 19 (a league low )all season. they can enjoy the occasion, but they have a very tough stretch of league games coming up and priority has to be survival and the simple truth is they do not need further involvement in this competition.
 

Monaco look to have booked second place in Ligue 1 with that hard earned win over third placed Nice at the weekend, but, with zero chance of catching PSG, that is job done and they can now afford to give their best in this competition and I would argue that this match is at least of equal importance to the trip to play St Etienne at the weekend. ASM have won as many games on the road as they have at home this season and in those six away day wins, they have only scored twice before the 52nd minute, with seven goals coming between then and the 72nd minute, I spoke ahead of a recent trip to Lorient about their strength being the tactical adjustments they make around the hour mark and with a big gulf in class and 37 league places separating these two and different objectives for the season, it is again through this period that I expect the visitors to assert and take charge. That confidence is re-enforced by Sochaux's inability to see games out and they have blown leads in four of their last five starts, once against ten men , in each they lost their way either after the break (sound familiar) or just before half time, the other game was a 0-0 draw with the basement club. A quick look at the visiting squad wil tell you that Monaco are treating this seriously. I can see nothing wrong with perhaps waiting for a better quote and have ( I hope) put up a case for doing so and I might well adopt that policy for my main bet, but officially, I will go with...........

 

 

Sochaux : Werner, Prévot - Teikeu, Gibaud, Faussurier, Fuchs - Tardieu, Ilaimaharitra, Martin, Guerbert, Daham, François - Caceres, Cissé, Toko Ekambi, Thuram, Robinet, Sao, Mbombo, Sacko.