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A stunning Franck Ribéry winner secured Marseille a much-needed 2-1 win over Nantes at the Stade Vélodrome on Saturday.
Without a win in a month of football, Marseille's recent defensive frailties were to be further tested with the suspensions to regular defenders Bostjan Cesar and Taye Taiwo as well as experienced midfielder Sabri Lamouchi.
However, Coach Jean Fernandez was able to call upon former skipper Frédéric Déhu, fully recovered from an Achilles’ injury, to marshall his new look defence.
In attack the Mamadou Niang passed a late fitness test and partnered France Under-21 livewire Ribéry up front.
Nantes Coach Serge Le Dizet was also without the services of his first-choice central midfield pairing of Jérémy Toulalan and Emerse Faé.
The smart money was on an open match of football and the punters weren’t wrong as first Lorik Cana, for Marseille, and then Habib Bamogo and Mauro Cetto, for Nantes, all wasted presentable chances in the opening 20 minutes.
It was Niang that created the opening that finally brought the goal for the home side on 29 minutes. The Senegalese striker’s backheel released Wilson Oruma one-on-one with Mickaël Landreau in Les Canaris goal and the Nigerian midfielder made no mistake.
The chances kept coming thick and fast, with Nantes’ Mamadou Diallo and Niang both going close before the half-time break.
It took Ribéry all of two and half minutes of the restart to suggest he was going to have a say in the eventual outcome of the match with a curling right-footed free-kick that came back off the crossbar with Landreau beaten.
The Nantes ‘keeper did better just three minutes later denying Ribéry a stunning solo goal with a figure tip save low to his right.
Just as Marseille were pushing for the goal to make the game safe, Nantes were handed a lifeline in the form of Bamogo’s deflected free-kick on the hour mark.
Bamogo, currently on-loan at La Beaujoire from Marseille, will claim the goal his industrious first-half effort deserved, although Fabien Barthez was completely wrong-footed by the wicked deflection off the wall.
With just over 15 minutes left Ribéry settled the match with a stunning strike from 25m out that left Landreau grasping at thin air. His fifth goal of the season crashing home off the underside of the crossbar.
If Landreau could be guilty of being a little too far off his line for Ribéry’s winner, the third-choice France ‘keeper kept his side’s hopes alive with a stunning display of reflex saves in the dying minutes – in particular an astonishing triple save from Déhu, Samir Nasri and Andres Mendoza.
The win sees Marseille climb above Nantes to tenth place ahead of the weekend’s other games.
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