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Jan 27, 2021
Monday January 25th
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Ligue 2 : Sochaux- Toulouse
Ahead of the first round of 2021 fixtures, I previewed each Ligue 2 team and ran their last five game numbers ............
Toulouse 51-25 /21-6
Toulouse's ITB and BC numbers are Ligue 2 best for those last 5 starts and offensively , they have created 50% premium scoring opportunities more than any other team, which explains the massive 26 goals scored in 10 starts. They were relegated from Ligue 1 last season and it took a while to come to terms with life at the lower level and remember how to win again, but they have the biggest budget in this division and that always helps.
In the first week of December I looked at how their season had played out to date ..............
Ahead of a 1-0 win for Toulouse at Amiens last month I wrote ............
Toulouse lost their opening two starts, conceding 6 goals in the process, but they are 3-3-0 subsequently with four clean sheets and only two goals against, not conceding a goal in 329 minutes of football. Four of those six starts came versus top 8 teams, including three of the top 5 and it makes impressive reading. Toulouse took four points from the two h2h games last season and have conceded just once to Amiens in six meetings. The visitors have the biggest second tier budget of 27m , trimmed "just" 8 from last season, Amiens have 15m, which is half of what they operated on in 19-20 .
Next time out I noted ............
Toulouse are now building up a head of steam, are unbeaten in 7, have not conceded in over 400 minutes of football, won their last three and are up to 5th with the biggest name and budget in Ligue 2. They have a really good run of fixtures leading up to Christmas and two points off the automatic promotion spots, will have full focus on getting there asap, knowing full well from their experience of last season what could happen should the season be cut short for any reason.
Sochaux 29-26 / 4-6
It is hard to know what to make of Sochaux and those 4-6 BC numbers to not overly inspire, but , it is one more created and 7 fewer conceded than Dunkerque, the home side are unbeaten in six and whilst that includes four draws, they have played three top 7 teams in that sequence and the two wins were 4-0 at home to Le Havre and 4-1 away to Caen last time out and neither are easy to score against.
Toulouse won that day 1-0 and have subsequently drawn 2-2 away to Caen and beat high-flying Grenoble 2-0 last week, they are third this morning, a win would take them back into the automatic promotion spots and is, of course, a huge incentive.
Sochaux also won to start the year, edging past a struggling Dunkerque side 1-0 and then played two top sides, drawing 0-0 as host to Clermont (the team in second this morning) and losing 2-1 away to leaders Troyes, so a tough sequence of games for them. The home side are 7th, BUT are 7 points off the team in sixth and closer points wise to the team in 16th (six points). They are a tough team to beat and score against, but find winning hard, just six victories all season , a lot of draws of course, but if we extend back to the start of the 2018-19 campaign, Sochaux have won just 25/86 starts, which is a 29.07% win rate and here we have a team just not used to winning football games. They look some way adrift of the top six as indicated by the points and statistical difference and hard to see how they are going to bridge that gap when they win so infrequently. They have scored just 3 goals in their last four home games (1-3-0), Toulouse have not lost since November 7th (7-3-0) and have continued to score freely, averaging 2.3 pg through that sequence.
If we update the ITB and BC numbers to include those last 3 games (8 total) , Sochaux are 52-54 and 6-10 respectively and Toulouse 70-40 and 23-10 and they just verify what we kind of already know, the hosts are all about keeping things tight, but are no better defensively thanToulouse, who pose a FAR bigger offensive threat.
Weather is likely to play a part, with snow and zero degrees forecast for game time, given that and the fact that Sochaux draw 55% of all first halves (60% at home) and that Toulouse tend to start games slowly too (level at the break in 60% of all games), the half time draw will certainly not surprise. The two teams played out a 0-0 draw in the reverse fixture in early season (Matchday 3) , that was the first point Toulouse picked up, but they were dealing with some relegation hangover issues at the time and still dominated statistically.
Toulouse are the best second half team in the section and by some way with a 12-5-3 record and scoring 27 goals (1.35 pg), conceding 0.5 pg. On the road they are 7-2-0 with a 13-2 goal difference for the second 45 minutes .
Toulouse actually host second placed Clermont on Saturday, you could make a case for that game being more important, but also counter with the fact that if they win today a draw at the weekend would keep them above Clermont. The only other thing to mention is that this is a 800km trip by road up to Sochaux, eight hours on the bus, you can fly and reduce the travel time by 5 hours or so each way, but I do not know if they have taken that option, but they did seem to be at the training centre pretty late in the day yesterday, so quite possibly.
Not a game I would have spent this much on normally, but we are not exactly flush with choice today, half time draw looks a good option, as is Toulouse to win the second half as long as they are playing 11 v 11 and the visitors are not already leading. I will leave that all up to you .
Good luck !
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