Marseille therefore stayed a little longer than expected in the Forez, but his stay was productive.

Warm in their hotel, Jorge Sampaoli's men had seen Nice and Rennes, their main rivals for qualification in the Champions League, separate on Saturday in a 1-1 draw which suited them perfectly.

And on Sunday, despite some initial fears, they easily got the better of the Stéphanois, who do not take off from their 18th place, that of the roadblocker.

The operation is excellent for the Provençaux before attacking a week with double stakes, European Thursday against PAOK Salonika in the quarter-finals of the Europa League Conference then national Sunday against Montpellier: they are now three steps ahead on Rennes and dug a small gap on Nice (5th), pushed back to five points and joined by Strasbourg (4th).

After the snowy adventures of Saturday, the match was therefore finally able to take place this Sunday without difficulty, even if there was enough snow in the stands to make a few balls thrown towards Payet when he hit the corners.

Paul Lopez guilty

The Marseille N.10 was also the first of his own to stand out with a huge opportunity wasted in one against one against Bernardoni (5th).

This failure was all the more embarrassing for OM as Saint-Etienne then quickly took the lead.

In the 9th minute, Bouanga indeed opened the scoring by taking advantage of a very average first intervention from Kolasinac then, above all, a gigantic hand error from Pau Lopez, who will again hear about Mandanda.

This goal came from almost nothing then seemed the best that could happen to the Greens and the worst to OM, now placed in front of a double green wall, from where two or three elements were always ready to spin against.

Stéphanois Denis Bouanga opened the scoring against OM at Geoffroy-Guichard thanks to a handball by Pau Lopez, April 3, 2022 JEFF PACHOUD AFP

The Marseillais certainly dominated then but without creating much, with the exception of a volley above Kamara (34th) and a long shot from Guendouzi (38th).

It was in fact finally Saint-Etienne who offered the equalizer to the Sampaoli team with a useless strapping of Mangala on Caleta-Car in full surface.

Payet converted the penalty to score his 10th goal of the season in L1, and the match was restarted at the break (1-1, 45+2).

the Greens give in

Payet, again, could have killed him very quickly if he had done better on a sumptuous pass from Under, who entered at the break.

But he still stumbled on Bernardoni (51st) and the game remained open.

But that did not last very long and the Greens then gave in worrying proportions for the rest of their season.

Dieng first hit the top of the bar with his head, then OM took the lead when a shot from Rongier repelled by Bernardoni returned to Kolodziejczak, who awkwardly cleared into the top corner of his own goalkeeper (2 -1, 60th).

The goalkeeper of the Greens Paul Bernardoni could not cope with the realism of the Marseillais here on the goal of Amine Harit, April 3, 2022 in Saint-Etienne JEFF PACHOUD AFP

The Senegalese striker then transformed a new penalty, conceded by Nordin in front of Gerson, to bring the score to 3-1 (67th).

Five minutes later, Harit added a fourth goal (4-1, 72nd) on a clear serve from Guendouzi.

At the very end of the match, Gourna brought the Greens to 4-2 with a nice shot, but at Geoffroy-Guichard, frozen but sold out, it was OM who were the strongest and who closer to his goal.

© 2022 AFP