Marseille vs PSG

Stade Velodrome forms the backdrop for a mouth-watering top-table Ligue 1 six-pointer between second-placed Olympique Marseille and pacesetters Paris Saint-Germain.

Marseille bounced back from a 3-1 home loss to Nice at the start of February with back-to-back league wins over Toulouse and Clermont by an aggregate score of 5-2, closing the gap on PSG to five points in the process. No strangers to toppling the joint-record French champions, Marseille stunned PSG 2-1 in January’s Coupe de France H2H and could now beat them twice in a row for the first time in the Qatari era. Despite the odds suggesting otherwise, that’s a genuine possibility, with ‘Les Olympiens’ racking up joint-most seven wins in nine Ligue 1 outings since the restart (D1, L1). But it’s worth noting that a minority (44%) of Marseille’s points in Ligue 1 this season have come on home turf (23/52), casting doubt on their bid to upset the odds here.

In the meantime, visiting PSG ran out 4-3 winners in last weekend’s topsy-turvy home game against Lille, making it three wins in four Ligue 1 matches in February (L1). However, Christophe Galtier’s men have faltered on the road in 2023, suffering three defeats on four league travels this calendar year (W1), as many losses as in their previous 22 away fixtures (W13, D6). Adding to Galtier’s sizeable list of concerns, ‘Les Parisiens’ have conceded precisely three goals in their last two Ligue 1 outings and could make it three on the spin for the first time since 1985. To quickly downplay this hypothesis, the reigning champions have kept a clean sheet on their last three top-flight visits to Marseille (W2, D1).