Lille vs Marseille. French Ligue 1.
Stade Pierre-MauroyAttendance44,286.
Saturday 16 May 2015 23:31, UK
Marseille made a mockery of Lille's formidable home form with a 4-0 mauling at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy.
Lille had won their last five home games and had only suffered three league defeats in front of their own fans in almost 18 months, but rampant Marseille ran out big winners.
Andre-Pierre Gignac opened the scoring after just two minutes and further goals Rod Fanni, Romain Alessandrini and Andre Ayew saw Lille suffer their biggest home loss in any competition since 1997.
Marseille, who have now won three on the trot having previously lost four in succession, remain two points behind third-placed Monaco following the win, while Lille are down in eighth.
The visitors could hardly have made a better start as an error from Vincent Enyeama gifted Gignac with a simple goal after the Lille keeper spilled Dimitri Payet's cross into his path.
Lille almost snatched an equaliser in the 13th minute, but Simon Kjaer saw his header cleared off the line by Alessandrini and 13 minutes later Marseille made it 2-0 when Fanni rose highest six yards out to power home a header from Payet's corner.
Marseille had a chance to kill the game off before half-time, but Gignac could only fire wide from 10 yards after Benjamin Mendy's brilliant run and cross created the chance.
That should have been it for Lille, but they survived and should really have halved the deficit three minutes into the second half.
Mandanda made a superb stop to deny Rony Lopes and, when the ball fell to Nolan Roux, he somehow managed to fluff his shot wide of the goal from a few yards out.
After that it was all Marseille, with Nicolas Nkoulou wasting a great chance to make it 3-0 in the 57th minute when he headed over from point-blank range.
It mattered little, though, as the visitors scored twice in six minutes to wrap up the win.
They finally notched the third goal they had been threatening in the 70th minute when, on the counter, Ayew chipped in Alessandrini and he made no mistake with just Enyeama to beat.
Marseille then added salt to Lille's wounds when Ayew escaped Sebastian Corchia's marking from Gianelli Imbula's pass before subtly lifting the ball over Enyeama.