Paris (AFP)

Girondins reversers! Bordeaux broke a Monaco team again reduced to ten (2-1) Sunday in Ligue 1, grilling politeness in Saint-Etienne and Montpellier, authors of a chilly draw (0-0), to interfere in Third place provisional until Toulouse-Marseille in the evening.

- A Bordeaux bis beats a Monaco at ten -

Even diminished, the Bordelais continued to advance during this 14th day: here is the team of Paulo Sousa (3rd, 22 pts) provisionally installed behind the Paris SG (1st, 33 pts) and Angers (2nd, 24 pts), and on equal points with Marseille (4th, 22 pts).

"The podium is important for everything we do, it gives you more motivation but our ambition is to work our game principle," savored Sousa.

This is a great reward for a group victim of a slaughter in recent hours, with the absences of Mexer, Otavio and Jovanovic suspended, Ait Bennasser exempted from the match against his lending club, then Laurent Koscielny package Sunday morning and Jimmy Briand during warm up ...

But the Girondins beat the reminder of the undesirables, with the surprise tenure of Jonathan Cafu, and the executives did the job at the Matmut Atlantique stadium: Pablo, royal behind and striker in front (29th), Nicolas de Préville by his percussion and his cool to turn the penalty 2-1 (69), and finally Benoît Costil, last impressive wall.

The Monegasques had however been dominating in the first period, to the point of taking the advantage thanks to a nice finish of Islam Slimani on a deviation of Wissam Ben Yedder (15th).

But Slimani precipitated the Monegasque defeat: the Algerian center-forward, present in the wall on an opponent's free kick, caused a penalty for having roughly countered the ball of the arm, scooping a second warning (67th). Already the sixth red card this season for the ASM, the worst result of the L1!

"I blamed Slimani for his lack of concentration," said coach Leonardo Jardim. "He scored a goal, but I sincerely expect more from him, it's also important behavior and it was not a big day for him."

- ASSE and Montpellier too cautious -

Saint-Etienne like Montpellier could dream of the podium during this day. Saint-Etienne as Montpellier missed this great opportunity, indulging a duel little exciting to neutralize itself on a draw and blank.

At Stade Geoffroy-Guichard, the St Etienne had the best opportunity of the first period by finding the amount of the Montpélliéraine cage on a shot by Arnaud Nordin (35th).

The Herault did not have much more success when the referee did not flinch on a very limited intervention of Timothée Kolodziejczak on Andy Delort in the surface (52e).

And in an end of indecisive game, Montpellier could have forced the destiny without a big Stéphane Ruffier.

The French international goalkeeper, who became Sunday the doorman having played the most matches with ASSE (304, against 303 for the legendary Ivan Curkovic), has released a parade of high class ahead of Gaëtan Laborde in the 77th minute to return the two teams back to back at the foot of the podium.

Results of the 14th day:

Friday

Paris SG - Lille 2 - 0

Saturday

Lyon - Nice 2 - 1

Dijon - Rennes 2 - 1

Brest - Nantes 1 - 1

Metz - Reims 1 - 1

Amiens - Strasbourg 0 - 4

Angers - Nimes 1 - 0

Sunday

Bordeaux - Monaco 2 - 1

Saint-Etienne - Montpellier 0 - 0

(21h00) Toulouse - Marseille

© 2019 AFP