Monaco vs Lens

Monaco lead Ligue 1 with 10 points from four matches (W3 D1 L0) and have conceded twice getting there. Filipe Luís, appointed on 6 July after leaving Flamengo, has not lost in six competitive matches in charge: five wins and Saturday's 1-1 at Strasbourg. Nobody here is in crisis. Neither side has a schedule complaint either, because the Champions League league phase does not resume until 13 October and both had a clear midweek.

Lens are the awkward part of that sentence. They finished second last season, won the Coupe de France for the first time in 27 years, and beat Paris Saint-Germain to the Trophée des Champions in Dino Toppmöller's first match after his 16 June appointment. Then they took four points from four Ligue 1 matches (W1 D1 L2), lost at home to Lorient, and drew 2-2 at promoted Le Mans on Sunday. Eleventh, winless in three league games, and still the better team on every shot chart.

What connects that dip to Friday is the treatment room. Maik Nawrocki ruptured the cruciate ligament in his left knee and is out until April. Samson Baidoo is gone until late October, Jhoanner Chávez and Saud Abdulhamid are unavailable, and the club has said it will not sign a replacement. The back three at Le Mans was Jonathan Gradit, Kyllian Antonio and Matthieu Udol, a left-back. Lens have not kept a clean sheet in a league match this season.

The Monaco vs Lens prediction settles here. Monaco have scored 1.50 and conceded 0.50 per Ligue 1 match across four games, with two clean sheets. Lens have scored 2.00 and conceded 1.75 across their four, with none. Both records hide something. Monaco's league xG reads 1.21 created and 1.44 conceded: a defence that has given up two goals has been giving up nearly a goal and a half of chances a game, and they won 2-1 at Paris Saint-Germain on 0.51 xG against 2.32. Lens are the mirror image, creating 2.85 xG a league game and taking one point from the 4.15 xG they built against Strasbourg and Lorient.

So the shape is not in doubt. Lens take 15.5 shots a Ligue 1 match and allow 11.5; Monaco take 10.5 and allow 15.8. Lens will have the ball in the Monaco box. The question is who converts, and Monaco have not failed to score in any of their six competitive matches. Lens's last four away matches all went over 2.5 goals and three had both sides scoring. The eight competitive meetings between these clubs average 3.88 goals, seven of the eight over 2.5. Nothing in either team's evidence argues for a quiet night.

No referee has been appointed, so the read has to come from the teams. Lens's four Ligue 1 matches this season have averaged 4.5 cards against a league average of 3.09, three of the four going over 3.5; Monaco's have averaged 3.2, two of four over. Lens collect 2.8 a game themselves, and their home defeat to Lorient produced five cards, one of them red.

That is what a side improvising at the back looks like when it dominates possession and loses. Lens will spend long spells with three defenders they have barely trained together covering a counter; Monaco commit 12.02 fouls a game on weighted season averages, marginally more than Lens's 11.90. Expect a busy evening for whoever gets the appointment, but there is no price on the board to build a lean from, so this stays analysis.

Lens win 6.8 corners a Ligue 1 match and concede 3.2; Monaco win 4.0 and concede 5.5. Add them and you land on the league's 9.51 average: Lens's league games have run to 10.0 a match, Monaco's to 9.5, and each side has gone over 9.5 in two of four.

The interesting part is the imbalance rather than the total. Almost all of the set-piece pressure should come from one end, and Lens are the side sending 6.8 corners in with a centre-back pairing assembled from a full-back and a 20-year-old. Monaco's best route to a second goal may be the transition that starts from one of those corners.