Ligue 1: St Etienne impress with 5-0 victory over Nice

St Etienne strengthened their grip on European qualification by hammering Nice 5-0 at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard on Sunday.

Loic Perrin and Jeremy Clement kicked off the rout in the first half, before the floodgates opened with Mevlut Erding, Max Gradel and Kevin Monnet-Paquet adding gloss to the scoreline.

The result moves Les Verts up to fourth in the standings with two games to go, while Nice remain 15th and need two points to secure Ligue 1 survival.

Mouez Hassen was called into action in the Nice goal early on and the young keeper did superbly well to keep out Benjamin Corgnet's effort from 12 yards before, from the resulting corner, Perrin was denied equally well.

It was proving to be a feisty encounter early on as referee Bartolomeu Varela went to his pocket three times in the opening 12 minutes but it was St Etienne doing all the early running with Corgnet looking a danger.

And, on 25 minutes, Les Verts' early pressure bore fruit when Gradel's corner found Perrin and the local-born defender drilled a superb diving header beyond Hassen to open the scoring.

Nice responded but Mathieu Bodmer headed Eric Bautheac's free-kick over the bar and Didier Digard snatched at a shot before St Etienne doubled their advantage as half-time approached when Clement sent a decent effort beyond Hassen from 18 yards.

Hassen continued to be the busier of the two keepers after the break and he did superbly well to come off his line and block Gradel's effort after the former Leeds man escaped the visitors' defence.

Then, with little over an hour played, St Etienne all-but wrapped up the points thanks to a wonderful solo effort from Erding who turned Jordan Amavi on the right before drilling an effort past Hassen at his near post.

That strike appeared to finally knock the stuffing out of Nice, although they did manage to create a chance as the latter stages approached but Alassane Plea saw his shot blocked following some good work inside the area.

St Etienne added insult to injury, though, with two goals in the final five minutes.

Firstly, having gone close seconds before, Gradel pounced on a Hassen clearance to fire home a fourth for Les Verts before Monnet-Paquet wrapped up an extremely successful afternoon for the hosts, when he met Franck Tabanou's pinpoint delivery to fire beyond the forlorn Nice stopper.