Aiming to take a step closer to sealing a top-three finish in the Ligue 1 table, Monaco will travel to the Parc Olympique Lyonnais to meet Lyon on Sunday.
With four games left to play, the visitors sit second thanks to three straight wins with a six-point lead over fourth place in the race for Champions League qualification, while their hosts dropped to ninth spot following a defeat last time out.
Lyon return to action hoping to bounce back from a heavy defeat last time out and continue a fine second half to the Ligue 1 campaign, having turned their campaign on its head since mid-December.
Les Gones endured a historically poor start to the season in France’s top flight, sitting bottom of the division late in 2023 with just seven points and one win on the board from their first 14 outings, but Pierre Sage has since inspired an impressive turnaround as they now find themselves in the top half in the final run-in.
In the 16 attempts since that opening rut, they have added 34 more points to their tally courtesy of 11 victories alongside just four more defeats, eventually cracking the top eight with a particularly impressive streak in recent weeks as a draw with Reims was the only blemish on a five-match span across March and April which produced triumphs over Lorient, Toulouse, Nantes and Brest, across which Les Gones scored 12 goals.
That saw them head into their toughest test of the campaign, a trip to runaway leaders Paris Saint-Germain on Sunday, with a degree of optimism and momentum, but they were unable to extend their hot streak into the final four games, instead succumbing to a 4-1 beating in the capital having pulled the deficit back to 3-1 in the first half through Ernest Nuamah, only for Goncalo Ramos to again stretch the hosts’ lead with his second of the game before the interval.
Having dropped back to ninth spot as a result of that setback, but only trailing Marseille on goal difference and seventh-placed Rennes by a single point, Lyon will bid to again strengthen their standing in the final weeks of the term and keep any faint hopes of European qualification alive, beginning with a return to winning ways at the weekend.
