Paris: France striker Andre-Pierre Gignac scored a double to put Marseille top of Ligue 1 for the first time this season with a 3-0 win over Rennes on Saturday.
Gignac opened with a spectacular scissors kick after 50 minutes, doubling his account on 63 minutes to overtake Paris Saint-Germain’s towering Swede Zlatan Ibrahimovic as the top Ligue 1 scorer with six goals this season.
Romain Alessandrini completed the scoreline four minutes into injury time to give the hosts their fourth successive win, to the delight of the crowd at the Velodrome Stadium.
“We deserved this victory, even if the difference in the scoreline is a bit exaggerated,” said Marseille coach Marcelo Bielsa, who praised the efforts of Gignac and goalkeeper and captain Steve Mandanda.
“Gignac managed to create imbalances. There are victories that can be explained by the influence of the goalkeeper or the number 9. We had a very clever and decisive number 9 [Gignac] and a goalkeeper who managed to get us out of very difficult situations.”
It puts Marseille equal on 13 points after six games with Bordeaux, who shrugged off their shock defeat to Guingamp last weekend to beat rock-bottom Evian 2-1 on Friday. Marseille are ahead on goal difference but could be overtaken on Sunday when unbeaten Lille host Montpellier.
Bielsa’s side were pushed hard in the first half by Rennes but, inspired by Gignac, the hosts got into their stride in the second half.
Gignac’s individual heroics broke the deadlock and 13 minutes later the 28-year-old notched up his sixth goal of the season. A crisply executed Alessandrini free-kick settled the affair after 94 minutes of play, as the crowd hailed Bielsa two weeks after his outburst against club bosses.
Bielsa accused club president Vincent Labrune of failing to keep the transfer promises he made when he persuaded the the Argentine to join the club.
For Rennes, sitting seventh, it was the end of their four-match undefeated run including a 1-1 draw last week at two-time defending champions Paris Saint-Germain.
But Nantes were in winning form with a 2-1 win at home against Nice thanks to first half goals from Senegalese midfielder Papy Djilobodji (9 minutes) and Israeli striker Itay Shechter (43) that lifts the southern Brittany outfit two spots to fifth.
It was also a good night for former French international midfielder Florent Malouda, playing his first Ligue 1 match in seven years for his new club Metz, after arriving from Turkish side Trabzonspor.
The 34-year-old former Chelsea player, who won 80 caps for France between 2004 and 2012, celebrated his 200th French league game with a 3-1 win at home against Bastia that puts the promoted side into the top half of the table at ninth.
Toulouse fought back to salvage a 3-3 draw at home against Caen in a thriller which saw three goals scored in the final seven minutes. Toulouse are sitting in 13th position four spots ahead of their Normandy rivals.
Further down the table Reims, in 14th position, moved out of relegation zone with a 1-0 win at Lorient thanks to a second half goal from Cameroonian striker Benjamin Moukandjo.
