NICE (France): Olympique Marseille’s away form continued to undermine their Ligue 1 title aspirations on Friday when they were beaten 2-1 at 10-man Nice on Friday.

Marcelo Bielsa’s side have not won on the road in Ligue 1 since October and mid-table Nice’s third straight win means Olympique Lyon will remain top at the end of the weekend irrespective of Sunday’s visit of Metz.

Defender Romain Genevois netted from close range early in the second half after Marseille failed to deal with a free kick into the box but a second yellow card for Kevin Gomis quickly threatened the home team’s chances.

Nice, though, went 2-0 up through Niklas Hult’s first league goal of the season when he scored unmarked at the back post and although Florian Thauvin pulled one back 13 minutes from time, the Cote d’Azur side were good value for the win at the Allianz Riviera Stadium.

“I think we did enough to win the game, we should have scored more,” Bielsa said. “But certain things keep happening over and over again. We had 10 chances to score and our opponents scored with their second chance following a free kick. We should be able to stop this from happening.”

Second-placed Marseille have 44 points from 22 games, one behind Lyon and three more than faltering champions Paris St Germain who travel to St Etienne on Sunday. Nice moved up to ninth, on 31 points.

Published in Dawn January 25th , 2015

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