The China Mail - Thauvin double sends Lens top of Ligue 1 for 1st time in 21 years

Victory took Lens a point clear of reigning French and European champions Paris Saint-Germain, who lost surprisingly 1-0 at Monaco on Saturday.

It is the first time that Lens have been top of Ligue 1 since August 2004.

Former Newcastle United flop Thauvin opened the scoring for Lens on the stroke of half-time with a rocket-like left-footed strike that gave Angers's Congolese goalkeeper Melvin Zinga no chance.

Thauvin, 32, who spent much of his career at Marseille, added the second 17 minutes from time with a deflected shot that wrong-footed Zinga.

But just three minutes later, Harouna Djibirin gave the hosts a lifeline, slotting home the rebound after Lens goalkeeper Robin Risser pulled off a fine save to deny Prosper Peter.

Lens had VAR to thank for holding onto the victory as the television match official overturned a late penalty award to Angers.

It has been a fine return to form this season for Thauvin, a World Cup winner with France in 2018, who spent six years in the international wilderness after suffering a bad ankle injury in 2019.

He seemed to be a forgotten man as he had spells with Tigres in Mexico and Italians Udinese, but his strong start to life at Lens, whom he joined at the start of this season, earned him a France recall in October.

The forward even scored on his first France appearance in six years after replacing Kylian Mbappe against Azerbaijan.

Elsewhere, Moroccan Hamza Igamane scored the winner two minutes from time to send Lille up to fourth with a 1-0 success at Le Havre.

Strasbourg missed the chance to move fifth as they lost 2-1 at home to Brest, while lowly Lorient moved out of the relegation zone with a 3-1 success over out-of-sorts Nice, who lost for the sixth time in a row in all competitions.

Z.Huang--ThChM