Marseille Handicap (0)
Rennes are one of the best teams in Ligue 1 when it comes to playing at home. At home, the black and red team won 71.7% of the points and scored 66.7% of the goals.
This was enough to qualify for European competition at the end of the season. After 25 rounds, the club is 5th in the league, 4 points behind the Champions League qualifying zone.
Rennes creates an average of 1.62xg per game with 1.26xg allowed.
In the upcoming game, Rennes will have to deal with a shortage of first-team players. Terje (9+4), Tet (2+2), Traore (1+2) will not help the team and Benjamin Bourijeau (3+5) is in doubt.
Marseille looked good at the restart of the season with 7 wins in 10 matches in Ligue 1. This allowed them to displace Monaco from 2nd place in the table. However, in the last meeting in the ¼ final of the French Cup, the “southerns” discredited themselves, losing on penalties to the outsider of the 2nd league – Annecy (2: 3 P). In the previous phase of the tournament, Marseille eliminated the powerful PSG (2-1), so this failure can be attributed to an elementary underestimation of the rival.
According to the expected number of goals scored (xg = 1.73) and conceded (xga = 1.22) goals, the team is ranked 3rd in the championship.
After this match, I expect a positive reaction from Marseille players to the last oversight. I think Rennes have every chance of taking the three points with their personnel losses.