Pierre Sage Tactics At RC Lens 2025/2026: Why Les Sang Et Or Are Top Of Ligue 1 – Tactical Analysis

Lens top Ligue 1 as we close in on the halfway point, ahead of PSG by one point at the top of the table. 

The historic French club has had a meteoric rise over the past five years, considering they were in Ligue 2 as recently as 2020. 

Franck Haise guided them to a second-place finish during the 2022/2023 season, which saw them qualify for the Champions League. 

Last season, under the direction of Will Still, they ended up finishing in eighth place and decided to look for a new manager. 

This summer, they sold key players Andy Diouf, Facundo Medina, and Neil El Aynaoui without making any big-money signings. 

Lens made the decision to hire former Lyon manager Pierre Sage, who has turned out to be a perfect fit. 

Sage has guided Lens to eight wins in their last nine matches, including notable victories over Olympique de Marseille and AS Monaco. 

What is impressive is that Sage is doing all of this with not that much talent compared to the top teams in France. 

Per Transfermarkt, Lens have a squad value of €88.35m.

That actually puts them in the bottom half of Ligue 1 and is over 10 times lower than PSG’s squad value of €1.15bn. 

In this Lens tactical analysis article, we will examine the tactics Pierre Sage is using to make Lens incredibly difficult to beat, look at the data behind their meteoric rise, and assess whether they have a chance of holding off Paris Saint-Germain over the course of the season. 

Pierre Sage Tactics

When Sage was at Lyon, he used a mixture of different tactics, but the main aim was to turn them into a very intense pressing team that was dangerous in transition. 

He has brought that over to Lens, but with a different twist.

He typically lined his Lyon teams up in a 4-3-3, but has switched to a 3-4-3 at Lens, as Les Sang et Or have done over the last few years. 

Those quick transitions are a big reason why Lens have scored 25 goals already. 

A number of their goals come directly from high turnovers, and this goal against Auxerre is a perfect example. 

You can see that Lens basically press out of a 4-4-3 shape, but once the ball is played to the centre-back, they jump into a man-to-man press.

Because they cut off all the passing lanes, the centre-back is forced to make a risky pass towards the middle.