French Football / James Eastham / 04 July 2009 / Leave a comment

The one-time champions are French football's fading force - so lay them for the 2009-10 season while they're still title favourites, writes James Eastham.

We're only a month into the summer close season but Lyon - yes, Lyon, the club that won seven consecutive league crowns from 2002 to 2008 - already look like they'll struggle to play a meaningful role in the 2009-10 title race.

Their two most influential players of recent seasons, Juninho and Karim Benzema, have departed, leaving a void that not even the 35m euros transfer fee received for Benzema's move to Real Madrid will be able to fill. Some of that money may go on FC Porto striker Lisandro Lopez, while Andre-Pierre Gignac, last season's 24-goal Ligue 1 top scorer at Toulouse, is another transfer target, but the sense that Lyon's winning cycle has come to an end is irrefutable.

Bordeaux (champions) and Marseille (runners-up) were last term's top two finishers, and the smart money says they'll be the top two again. The pecking order may be reversed, however, as Marseille have made a remarkably quick recovery from the vicious in-fighting at the start of June that ended with the sacking of highly-regarded president Pape Diouf. New coach Didier Deschamps (he replaces Eric Gerets, off to claim a pot of gold at Saudi Arabian club Al-Hilal) immediately identified a playmaker of international standard as the team's missing link, and has rectified the issue by signing FC Porto's excellent Argentina international Lucho Gonzalez for 19m euros. At 28, Gonzalez is coming into his prime and will relish the challenge of helping Marseille win their first league title for 18 years after four tremendously successful seasons in Portugal, although an equally important - and, symbolically, far more powerful - signing is the 6m euros arrival of Senegal international centre-half Souleymane Diawara from title rivals Bordeaux. Diawara's desire to leave Gironde for le Vieux Port shows that Marseille retains a pulling power no other French club can match.

Bordeaux coach Laurent Blanc will find it difficult to replace Diawara, because top-class centre-halves are thin on the ground in France. The only player that performed as consistently as Diawara in Ligue 1 last season was Rennes' Senegal centre-half Kader Mangane, but the Breton club have made it clear that Diawara's international colleague is not for sale. Blanc will probably have to settle for Lorient's Michael Ciani, or continue his hunt abroad (Marko Basa, the Montenegro international who used to play for Le Mans and now turns out for Lokomotiv Moscow, is another target), but at least he's solved another of Bordeaux's defensive problems by signing France's third-choice goalkeeper Cedric Carrasso from Toulouse (8m euros) to replace the increasingly unreliable Ulrich Rame. Let's not forget, either, that the player that inspired Bordeaux's title triumph last season, Yoann Gourcuff, has signed a four-year deal for a fee of 15m euros after spending a successful year on loan from AC Milan.

The side most likely to boot Lyon out of the top three is PSG. During much of last season, they looked capable of claiming a Champions League place, but then faded during the run-in following the news that coach Paul Le Guen would be replaced at the end of the season. The new man in the managerial hot seat is Antoine Kombouare, and he has the advantage of being familiar with his new surroundings: the New Caledonian-born coach played for the club during the early 1990s and coached PSG's reserves from 1999 to 2003 before taking first-team posts at Strasbourg and Valenciennes. Kombouare has already set about reshaping the squad, signing former France goalkeeper Gregory Coupet, a youthful 37, to replace error-prone Mickael Landreau, and Mevlut Erding to shoulder some of the responsibility in attack alongside last season's 17-goal top scorer Guillaume Hoarau. Erding, an 8m signing from Sochaux, is an excellent striker: he scored 11 goals in each of the past two seasons despite playing for a club battling against relegation in both campaigns, and is such an able finisher that he nearly always forces the goalkeeper into a save. The 22-year-old Turkey international is capable of scoring 15 to 20 league goals in a PSG shirt next season.

Most punters may say it's too early to bet - but having looked at the prices, I feel now is the ideal time to oppose Lyon in the title race. I find it absolutely astonishing that they remain title favourites at [2.5] despite finishing third last term and losing their two best players since, so I can only think their price will get bigger once the real action gets under way. Bordeaux are second favourites at [3.5], Marseille lie third at [3.6] and PSG are fourth at [10] - but for now, the stand-out betting opportunity is to oppose Lyon. The chance to lay them at under [3.0] in what looks likely to be the season that will cement their place as also-rans is simply too good to miss.

* James Eastham made 19.86pts profit (after 5% commission) from 83pts staked (23.9% ROI) on Ligue 1 matches and outright markets last season.