Nice round off a taxing week in Ligue 1 with a trip to an Angers side who have lost a fair bit of momentum in recent weeks on Sunday lunchtime.
Gerald Baticle's side were held to a 2-2 draw by basement boys Saint-Etienne last time out, whereas Les Aiglons played out a 1-1 draw with Marseille in midweek.
Match preview
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Having stormed into a two-goal lead at the Stade Geoffrey-Guichard thanks to Ismael Traore's header and Angelo Fulgini's toe poke, many expected Angers to pile more misery on Saint-Etienne last weekend, but the hosts had other ideas.
Wahbi Khazri's pinpoint free kick left Paul Bernardoni flat-footed just after the hour mark, and in the fourth minute of second-half injury time, substitute Mickael Nade headed home following a goalmouth scramble during another frustrating afternoon for Angers.
Les Scoistes' eye-catching start to the season has somewhat paled into a patch of inconsistent form - with Baticle overseeing just one win from his side's last seven in Ligue 1 - and they have slipped to sixth in the rankings as a result.
Having taken 11 points from the first 15 on offer in the 2021-22 season, Angers have now amassed just six from the last 18 on offer, with Nantes and Monaco level on points with Les Scoistes and ready to send them further down the table with any further slip-ups.
An inability to keep the back door shut has seen Angers concede two goals in each of their last three matches, but Lyon, Rennes and Marseille have all failed to get the better of the hosts at the Stade Raymond Kopa so far this term, so Nice cannot afford to take their opponents lightly.
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There were no prizes for guessing who broke the deadlock during Nice's behind-closed-doors replay with Marseille - abandoned in August as crowds spilled out onto the pitch to engage in scuffles with players and staff - as Amine Gouiri was on hand to tap home from Evann Guessand's cross.
However, Marseille's main man Dimitri Payet latched onto a ball from Gerson after Arkadiusz Milik's brilliant dummy and rifled home into the bottom corner to restore parity for Les Olympiens, and there were no second-half goals to be had in that tightly-fought encounter.
Now without a clean sheet in four games, Nice appear to have lost some of that defensive resilience that Galtier prides himself on, but Les Aiglons have still conceded a league-low eight goals and remain third in the table after 11 matches.
Twenty-one strikes at the correct end of the pitch is also the second-highest tally in the top flight behind Paris Saint-Germain, and two goals conceded on the road is by far the best record in the division, although those goals came in 1-0 defeats to Lorient and Troyes in recent weeks.
Furthermore, Les Aiglons - in spite of their troubles last season - chalked up a pair of 3-0 wins over Angers during the 2020-21 campaign and have lost just one of their last eight against Les Scoistes, whose current creative hub Fulgini is the top scorer in this fixture with three goals to his name.
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Team News
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Angers have settled on a first-choice XI this term and have no fresh injury concerns to work around, with Zinedine Ould Khaled and Abdoulaye Bamba still in the infirmary.
Jimmy Cabot missed training earlier this week due to a calf complaint but is expected to be fine for the weekend, and the same can be said for Thomas Mangani, who has been dealing with personal problems.
Stephane Bahoken was given the nod up top alongside Sofiane Boufal for the Saint-Etienne clash, but breakthrough star Mohamed-Ali Cho will hope to return this weekend.
Meanwhile, Nice forward Kasper Dolberg was a late withdrawal from the Marseille clash after returning to Denmark for personal reasons, but Andy Delort will return after being ineligible for the midweek game.
Delort's return is particularly timely with Guessand almost certainly ruled out with a sprained ankle, so the former Montpellier HSC man and Gouiri ought to form the two-man strikeforce this weekend.
Guessand joins Robson Bambu, Justin Kluivert and Calvin Stengs in the visitors' medical bay, while Alexis Claude-Maurice will hope to edge out Hassane Kamara for a start on the left here.
Angers possible starting lineup:
Bernardoni; Manceau, Traore, Thomas; Cabot, Mangini, Mendy, Capelle; Fulgini; Cho, Boufal
Nice possible starting lineup:
Benitez; Atal, Todibo, Dante, Bard; Da Cunha, Rosario, Thuram, Claude-Maurice; Delort, Gouiri
We say: Angers 1-2 Nice
The return of Delort gives Nice that extra attacking edge which was sorely needed in their meeting with Marseille, and no-one can question the visitors' goalscoring exploits when they are in the mood.
Angers will hope to see their week's worth of rest do them the world of good against Galtier's fatigued crop, but Baticle's men are starting to struggle for consistency, and we expect them to just fall short this time.
Top tip
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Angers win with a probability of 36.61%. A win for Nice had a probability of 35.27% and a draw had a probability of 28.1%.
The most likely scoreline for an Angers win was 1-0 with a probability of 11.43%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (7.79%) and 2-0 (6.75%). The likeliest Nice win was 0-1 (11.17%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (13.19%). The actual scoreline of 1-2 was predicted with a 7.6% likelihood.
