Champions League semi-finalists Lyon get their Ligue 1 campaign underway on Friday evening with a home encounter against Dijon.
The visitors to the Groupama Stadium head into the contest having begun their season with an opening-day setback versus Angers.
Match preview
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Having enjoyed their best-ever campaign in European football's premier competition, Lyon will be on a high as they begin their bid to return to Ligue 1's top three.
Despite the adulation of overcoming Juventus and Manchester City in recent weeks, Lyon have been left without continental football this season after the last top-flight campaign was cut short with the club in seventh place.
While the extra financial implications have come at the wrong time, boss Rudi Garcia may welcome less distractions as they look to challenge an over-worked Paris Saint-Germain outfit for the league title.
In order to emerge as long-term contenders, Lyon will have to fight hard to retain the services of their star men, many of whom have been linked with transfers to bigger clubs.
Nevertheless, even if any funds raised from their sales need to be reinvested, there is now confidence that Garcia is the man for the job after he was criticised during the opening weeks of his tenure.
With a relegation battle having been narrowly avoided last season, Dijon boss Stephane Jobard would have viewed the home game with Angers as the perfect opportunity to get off the mark this time around.
However, Les Hiboux ultimately succumbed to a first-half goal from Ismael Traore, subsequently leaving Dijon third bottom of the teams who featured on the first matchday of the season.
Brest and Strasbourg are to follow the trip to Lyon, fixtures which are theoretically more favourable than the game later this week, but Jobard will acknowledge that his players are under pressure to deliver an improved performance.
Dijon won just one of their seven games in all competitions before last season was ended abruptly, and Jobard may fear for his job in the long term if his team cannot bounce back over their upcoming fixtures.
Lyon form (all competitions): DLWL
Dijon Ligue 1 form: L
Team News
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Despite having played three at the back against Juve, Man City and Bayern Munich, Lyon are expected to revert to a back four for this contest.
That would allow Moussa Dembele to return to the first XI in attack, with Memphis Depay and Jeff Reine-Adelaide playing either side.
However, Rafael is out of contention after being handed a red card during the Coupe de la Ligue final.
Jobard will almost certainly make a number of alterations to his Dijon starting lineup, which should include a recall for Romain Amalfitano.
Pape Cheikh Diop is unable to feature in this encounter due to being on a loan spell from Lyon.
Lyon possible starting lineup:
Lopes; Dubois, Marcelo, Denayer, Cornet; Caqueret, Guimaraes, Aouar; Reine-Adelaide, Dembele, Depay
Dijon possible starting lineup:
Gomis; Nounchil, Manga, Lautoa, Muzinga; Marie, Ndong, Amalfitano; Ebimbe, Scheidler, Chouiar
We say: Lyon 2-0 Dijon
Having already gotten four matches under the belt since last month, we expect Lyon to be fully up to speed on Friday evening. With that in mind, it would come as a surprise if Garcia's men did not run out comfortable winners.
Top betting tip
Our expert tipster partners at Sporita.com are predicting a draw in this match. Click here to find out what else they are predicting for this game and for more of their tried-and-tested football tips.Draw:dataData 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 Lyon win with a probability of 57.63%. A draw had a probability of 24.2% and a win for Dijon had a probability of 18.12%.
The most likely scoreline for a Lyon win was 1-0 with a probability of 14.01%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (11.65%) and 2-1 (9.45%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (11.36%), while for a Dijon win it was 0-1 (6.84%). The actual scoreline of 4-1 was predicted with a 2.2% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Lyon would win this match.
