Two Thauvin penalties, one red card and four second-half goals: Bollaert gets its festival
Lens led 1-0 at the break and looked ordinary doing it. Then Auxerre, already down to ten men since the 35th minute, lost the second half 4-2 and the game got away from them entirely.
Bollaert-Delelis got its opening night early: Florian Thauvin scored from the spot after twelve minutes and 38,115 people settled in expecting the rest to follow. It did not, at least not straight away.
Auxerre lost Christ Makosso on 35 minutes — a last-man foul, no argument — and still went in only 1-0 down. Lens had 39% of the ball in that first half. Against ten men. It was not a convincing forty-five minutes.
Then the second half happened
Franjo Ivanović made it 2-0 at 49'. Saud Abdulhamid headed the third at 54'. Auxerre pulled one back through a Danny Namaso penalty at 61', Ganiou restored the three-goal cushion at 66', and Lamine Sy answered again at 69'.
Five goals in twenty minutes, and the possession swung from 39% to 65% after the break. Thauvin closed it from the spot at 88', after VAR had already taken one Lens penalty away four minutes earlier.
Thauvin finished with two goals and an assist. The wider numbers are a warning as much as a celebration: Lens generated 4.45 expected goals from nine big chances, which is an enormous evening in front of goal — and they still conceded twice to a side playing with ten men for an hour.
Match facts
- 12' — Florian Thauvin (Lens), penalty
- 35' — Christ Makosso (Auxerre) sent off, last-man foul
- 49' — Franjo Ivanović (Lens)
- 54' — Saud Abdulhamid (Lens)
- 61' — Danny Namaso (Auxerre), penalty
- 66' — Ganiou (Lens)
- 69' — Lamine Sy (Auxerre)
- 88' — Florian Thauvin (Lens), penalty
| Stat | Lens | Auxerre |
|---|---|---|
| Possession | 53% | 47% |
| Total shots | 12 | 10 |
| Shots on target | 9 | 4 |
| Expected goals (xG) | 4.45 | 1.79 |
| Accurate passes | 415 (88%) | 338 (81%) |
| Corners | 4 | 7 |
| Fouls committed | 6 | 21 |
| Saves | 2 | 4 |
| Red cards | 0 | 1 |
Both sides since Bollaert
The five goals at Bollaert turned out to be a peak rather than a floor for Lens. They lost 1-2 at Strasbourg the following weekend, then 0-1 at home to Lorient, before the Champions League brought a bounce with a 3-2 win away at Slavia Praha. Back in the league they drew 2-2 at Le Mans and lost 1-2 at Monaco on matchday 5, leaving them with one win from the four Ligue 1 games played since this one.
Auxerre's response went the other way. They lost the return trip to Angers 1-3, then 1-3 at Lyon, before turning it around either side of the international break with back-to-back home wins — 1-0 against Nice and 2-1 over Brest. Two wins in a row is their best run of the season so far, and both arrived after the heaviest defeat of their campaign.
Where the table stands now
Five matchdays in, the two sides that shared seven goals at Bollaert sit apart in the standings. Auxerre are 10th with 6 points from five games — two wins, three losses, 7 scored and 12 conceded. Lens are 15th with 4 points, level on goal difference at 0 but with one win, one draw and three losses to show for their five matches. Neither is anywhere near Monaco and Lyon at the top, but Lens are the closer one to trouble: they sit just a single place above the relegation play-off zone, level on points with 16th-placed Troyes below them and ahead only on goal difference.
What's next
Lens go to Strasbourg on Saturday 29 August, against a side that also lost its opener and will not be in the mood. Auxerre host Angers the same day — a fixture that looks like the right place to start fixing what happened here.
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