Ligue 1 2020/21: Saint-Etienne vs Lille

Saint-Étienne hosted Lille at Stade Geoffroy-Guichard in the late kick-off in Ligue 1 this past Sunday.

Despite these two teams sitting quite far apart from one another on the table, with Lille hoping to mount a title challenge for 2019/20 Ligue 1 winners and UEFA Champions League finalists PSG this season and Saint-Étienne hoping to keep themselves out of a relegation battle for a second year running, this match was quite closely contested and it ended in a 1-1 draw.

In this tactical analysis piece, we’ll provide some analysis of the tactics that both Saint-Étienne and Lille utilised in all phases of Sunday’s game. We’ll look at why Saint-Étienne dominated the first 45 minutes and how Lille managed to turn things around in the second half and examine why a draw may have been the fair result here when all was said and done.

Lineups and formations

Firstly, we’ll look at how the home side lined up for this fixture. Claude Puel set his team up in a 4-4-2 shape for this game. This is the shape that Les Verts have used more often than any other during the 2020/21 campaign thus far, so perhaps there were no major surprises there.

Jessy Moulin started in goal for the home side, while the back four in front of him consisted of veteran right-back Mathieu Debuchy, left-back Miguel Trauco, right centre-back Harold Moukoudi and left centre-back Timothée Kolodziejczak.