Ineos-owned club must pick up the pieces as hundreds of supporters hit and spit on players after sixth straight loss

By Get French Football News

Football is often lauded for its capacity to bring people together but in Nice, it has also laid bare its capacity to tear a city apart.

It’s a Sunday night, and the Nice players and staff have just landed back in the Côte d’Azur after another defeat, their sixth in succession in all competitions. It wasn’t just the loss but the manner of it, and who it came against. “We lost at Lorient, a team that should be relegated. We’re rubbish, we know it,” said a visibly-emotional Sofiane Diop as the midfielder pleaded with the travelling fans after the 3-1 defeat on 30 November.

• Rodrygo keeps Real within four points of Barça at top

• Inter win 2-1 at Genoa, as Milan draw and Napoli lose

Rodrygo secured a crucial 2-1 victory for Real Madrid at Alavés in La Liga, ending a dismal run of form and keeping them within four points of the leaders, Barcelona.

Real, under pressure after two successive defeats in all competitions, broke the deadlock through Kylian Mbappé’s stunning first-half strike. However, a resilient Alavés levelled in the 68th minute through Carlos Vicente. The visitors restored their lead eight minutes later, courtesy of a counterattack led by Vinícius Júnior, whose assist was converted by Rodrygo.

• Pair verbally and physically abused as they left team bus

• Nice to await police report before deciding on response

The Nice players Terem Moffi and Jérémie Boga have been placed on sick leave after the team were confronted by supporters upon their return from a 3-1 defeat at Lorient.

Moffi was given a week’s leave and Boga five days, both effective from Monday, after an estimated 400 fans gathered outside the club’s training centre on Sunday night. The pair were verbally and physically abused as they left the team bus after the travelling party was swamped by ultras unhappy at a sixth consecutive loss in all competitions. The club’s sporting director, Florian Maurice, was also among those targeted.

Luis Enrique was scathing after PSG’s ‘worst match of the season’ but Marseille are too flaky to make them pay

By Get French Football News

Paris Saint-Germain were flat and lethargic in their 1-0 defeat to Monaco on Saturday afternoon. Luis Enrique called it their “worst match of the season” and “a very bad night”. His players created very little, although it might have been a very different story had the Monaco midfielder Lamine Camara been sent off for his lunge on Lucas Chevalier early in the first half. The France international said his “career could have taken a turn” and that he considered himself “lucky” to continue after the tackle that was sanctioned with a yellow, rather than a red.

Takumi Minamino gave Monaco the lead midway through the second half before they did go down to 10 men, Thilo Kehrer receiving a red card in the 80th minute, but PSG failed to create any clear openings. It felt like a simple off night, even if the lack of goals from their forwards remains a cause for concern. The result gave Marseille the chance to land a psychological blow.

The midfielder has made plenty of headlines in the last 26 months but he is finally back gliding across a football field

By Get French Football News

How much can you learn from Paul Pogba’s nine-minute cameo? Perhaps just that he does indeed exist and not only in columns, fitness updates and social media posts. That is where he has existed for the past 26 months, since his final game for Juventus in September 2023: equally at the centre of our gaze and absent from it.

Between his four-year doping ban, reduced to 18 months on appeal, his release from Juventus, and the extortion and kidnapping case that led to his brother being sentenced to three years in prison, his name has been constantly uttered but his face has been rarely seen – at least not on a football pitch.

Former defender on his challenge as sporting director at Ligue 1 club and using Arsène Wenger as an inspiration

Returning to Brittany was the obvious choice for Laurent Koscielny. Having left Lorient for Arsenal in 2010, the former defender is back at the Ligue 1 side as the sporting director.

“My wife and I were keen to come back, it’s a beautiful region, and the people are welcoming and kind,” the Frenchman says of the seaside town, known for its annual Celtic music festival and military naval base.