FRENCH football expert Gary Clarke (@Gaz_Tips) pinpoints the value for Friday night's Ligue 1 clash between Rennes and Lyon.
Rennes v Lyon | Friday 11th August 2017, 19:45 | BT Sport
When having a first look at the odds for Round 2’s set of fixtures on Monday morning, this game was one of the first that stood out.
Lyon were odds-on with most bookmakers; they've come back out to around the even-money mark now with the majority but they are still far too short for my liking.
It would be skinny for last year’s Lyon side, never mind this year’s weaker version.
Rennes solid at home
Looking back to last season, Rennes W10-D6-L3 at home – two of those losses were by a single goal to both PSG and Monaco.
They spent quite a bit of cash this summer and expectations are a good bit higher than what they would be used too. Christian Gourcuff’s men get themselves up for games at Roazhon Park and the stadium can get very loud.
Last weekend at Troyes they played pretty well, started off quite slowly but they improved as the game went on and the last 15 minutes it was all one-way traffic with Ismaila Sarr missing an unbelievable chance to go along with his one-on-one miss earlier in the game.
Lyon much changed
OL, as we know, have had a big turnover this summer with three major stars leaving but their wasn't much sign of their weaknesses last week.
Bertrand Traore, Nabil Fekir and Memphis Depay are certainly still an exciting front three playing behind new striker Mariano Diaz, who looked good and bagged himself a brace on his debut.
Les Gone beat Strasbourg 4-0 and never broke sweat. Strasbourg only had one shot on-target and were very poor, in all honesty.
There were pointers to that result as they weren't great last year on the road in Ligue 2, so I don't think Bruno Genesio's charges should be getting themselves overly excited with that result – I certainly wont be.
The betting angle
With the odds as they are, Rennes are certainly where the value lies here – Lyon shouldn't be the mark they are.
Take the home side to avoid defeat with a +0.5 start on the Asian Handicap line at 81/100 (Bet365).
Best Bets
Rennes v Lyon – Rennes +0.5 Asian Handicap (81/100 Bet365)
