OUR man in France is Julien Laurens and he's looking at Monaco v Dijon.
Julien is a London-based sports correspondent for Le Parisien and a veritable French football expert. He writes in French and English for a number of esteemed publications and is a regular on BT Sport as well as contributing to Unibet.
Monaco v Dijon (Fri 7.45pm)
French champions Monaco are in good form at the moment: sitting second in the table, one point clear of Marseille and five of Lyon. They have not lost in the league since November and their only loss at home all season in the league was against Paris SG.
Bar that defeat they have been resilient, efficient or impressive in their other games. They will be certainly hard to beat on Friday. Radamel Falcao is still out but goalkeeper Danijel Subasic is back from injury while Keita Baldé returns from suspension as well.
However, Stevan Jovetic will probably keep his place in the team up front after his two goals away at Angers last weekend. He was outstanding last weekend. Thomas Lemar made his return in the team last weekend and is now fit to play. It will be great for Monaco to finally have him back to his best.
Manager Leonardo Jardim will put out his best team available on Friday so they can put pressure on Marseille who play on Sunday evening in a tricky game against Bordeaux. Monaco have never lost at home against Dijon so the players will be pretty confident that they can continue their current great run of form.
For Dijon it is a huge game, a week after their 2-1 home win over Nice. They won’t expect to have much of the ball at the Stade Louis II but they will fight hard in their 4-3-3 formation. However, I don’t think it will be good enough.
Julien's Tips
- Monaco 2, Dijon 0 (7-1, Unibet)
- Jovetic to score first (33-10, Unibet)
- Monaco win to nil (29-20, Unibet)
