Friday Football Tips: French fancies look tasty

• Nice flying under new boss

• Laborde 1+ SOT in 12 of last 14

• Back our 17/10 Bet Builder

There's the usual smattering of matches across Europe on Friday but we're going to focus on France and the night's Ligue 1 encounter.

Since sacking Lucien Favre in the wake of their Coupe de France exit at the hands of third-tier Le Puy Foot last month, Nice have made a flying start to life under new boss Didier Digard.

They've won four and drawn one of their five games with their last three bringing victories over Marseille, Lens and Lille, all of whom reside in the top six.

Next they face an Ajaccio side stuck in the relegation zone having scored a league-low 18 goals in their 22 games so far.

The Corscians have lost five of their last six in the league, failing to score in four of those games.

With Ajaccio also hit by the suspension of defender Ismael Diallo and midfielder Vincent Marchetti, not to mention having several injury doubts, a home win looks a solid foundation for our Bet Builder.

The props element comes from the shots markets with Nice having hit between 12 and 16 shots in all four of their wins under Digard.

Twice in five games under the new manager have Nice racked up an expected goals (xG) figure above 2.0 - something they'd managed only once under Favre in Ligue 1.

That's been down to improved target-hitting - more than half of Nice's shots under Digard have been on target.

While that's probably unsustainable over a longer period, I'm still happy to put Gaetan Laborde down for 1+ shot on target.

He's landed this in 12 of his last 14 appearances - actually hitting 2+ SOT in seven - and while he was moved into a wider role in the forward line last week to accommodate new signing Terem Moffi, he still managed to keep his run going.

Laborde should get chances to add to his tally here.

I also like Khephren Thuram for shots.

His been pushed forward more since Digard's arrival and that was highlighted by his five shots against Marseille last week.

He's another who's landed the 1+ shot on target bet regularly of late - five times out of six. That's tempting at 17/10.

However, I'll take the safer option of 1+ shot which brings out three-legged Bet Builder up to around the 17/10 mark.

Read James Eastham's weekend Ligue 1 preview