High-flying Rennes welcome reigning champions Lille to Roazhon Park on Wednesday evening with the former playing far more like title-holders than their upcoming opponents.
The hosts moved up to second in the table with another win at the weekend, whilst a draw saw the visitors fall further into the bottom half.
Match preview
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Aside from a brief flip in mid-September, where they suffered back-to-back 2-0 defeats against Reims and Marseille, Rennes have been consistently producing the goods in both Ligue 1 and the Europa Conference League this season.
They have not tasted defeat since that loss at Marseille - a run of 13 games which has featured five straight victories and nine wins in the last 11.
Sunday saw Les Rennais produce their second consecutive 2-0 victory in the league in a Breton derby - they had to wait until the 75th minute to make the breakthrough via Gaetan Laborde, but the win was sealed just three minutes after that thanks to a stunner from Jeremy Doku 10 minutes into his return from injury.
The fact that the team has kept up their impressive form whilst missing arguably their most important player speaks volumes of the togetherness and confidence in the squad.
Bruno Genesio will hope his side can carry that form into Wednesday's game with the stuttering champions in what is a congested run of fixtures for the north-western side.
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Lille also find themselves with seven games to play in the space of barely three weeks, and it comes at a time when they cannot seem to buy a win in the league.
Things have been going better in Europe, with back-to-back victories over Sevilla and Red Bull Salzburg moving them to the top of a very tight Champions League Group G, but they are now winless in six Ligue 1 games.
After a tricky start to their title defence - to say the least - Les Dogues appeared to be finding their feet under new manager Jocelyn Gourvennec with three consecutive league wins in late September and early October moving them up the table.
That impressive 2-0 victory over Marseille on October 3 is still their last league triumph, however, and a 1-1 draw with Nantes on Saturday saw them slip to 13th in the table.
Ludovic Blas equalised in the 24th minute after Burak Yilmaz's early opener and Les Canaris were able to hold on until the final whistle, despite being reduced to 10 men and giving away a penalty in the final 15 minutes.
Jonathan David - maybe the one success story of Lille's season - saw his penalty saved by Ivo Grbic, rather summing things up for the champions at the moment.
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Team News
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Long-term absentee Jeremy Gelin is the only injury concern for Rennes with a knee problem, meaning Garcia can retain his favoured 4-3-3 system.
Doku came off the bench for the second consecutive game against Lorient, scoring almost immediately, and he will surely now be considered fit enough to start from the first whistle.
Gabriel Gudmundsson (muscle) and Leo Jardim (neck) are both certainly unavailable for Lille due to injuries.
Sven Botman is closing in on a return from a groin injury but may not be ready to take his place at the back just yet.
David will surely continue to lead the line despite his late penalty miss against Nantes.
Rennes possible starting lineup:
Gomis; Truffert, Aguerd, Omari, Traore; Tait, Martin, Sulemana; Doku, Terrier, Laborde
Lille possible starting lineup:
Grbic; Mandava, Fonte, Djalo, Celik; Bamba, Andre, Xeka, Ikone; Yilmaz, David
We say: Rennes 1-1 Lille
The form book points to an easy Rennes win, but Lille have been getting closer to finally earning another three points and will be determined to make amends for what could have been at the weekend. All things considered, we expect the two sides to somewhat cancel each other out and share the spoils.
Top tip
James Mackenzie
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Rennes win with a probability of 59.77%. A draw had a probability of 22.5% and a win for Lille had a probability of 17.69%.
The most likely scoreline for a Rennes win was 1-0 with a probability of 12.17%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (11.13%) and 2-1 (9.8%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (10.71%), while for a Lille win it was 0-1 (5.86%). The actual scoreline of 1-2 was predicted with a 4.7% likelihood.
