Ligue 1 sample previews....
Aug 19, 2026
The new season starts in Ligue 1 this Friday and I sent subscribers my early notes on all 18 teams on Monday and you can read a sample below and you have already seen the Brest write up ......
League 1 2026-27
Lille: suggested finish 6th-7th place
Last season I wrote ....Of the bigger clubs and one of the few not named PSG who have a recent Ligue 1 title to their name, Lille have the smallest budget. Circa 100m sounds fine and many teams would love it, but it is 7th biggest and it is a sign of how well run they are that they have overperformed in six of the last seven campaigns to finish 2-4-1-10-5-4-5. Last season they should have picked up 3 fewer points, scored 8 goals more and conceded an additional 10 . I can certainly see them giving up more goals this season as they have sold their star goalkeeper, Lucas Chevalier, to PSG for a huge fee and their LB to Leeds United and it hardly looks better as the other end of the pitch as Jonathan David's contract has run out. He contributed 16 goals and 5 assists last season and his record is extraordinary, as he scored between 13-24 goals in all five seasons with the club, missing only four league games total in that time and is still only 25 yo! They have added 5-6 fairly low cost signings to the squad, along with free transfer Olivier Giroud from LAFC (only 5 goals in 38 games for the MLS side) and doubtless there will be a gem amongst them. They will do well to take another top 5 spot.
They actually finished third, albeit only two points above the team in sixth, xP suggest 4th and that is probably fair. 52 goals scored was the lowest amongst the top 8 and the same as the previous season and they are surely going to need to up that to repeat top 4 and that will be difficult IMO as they have the Champions League to negotiate and a new head coach in Davide Ancelotti who has spent almost all his career as an assistant to his father Carlo. I do not know how good he is likely to be under his own steam, but he has only held one position at a club not led by Carlo and that was in the main job at Botafogo where he lasted five months and then went back to work with "dad". This appointment feels risky and not very "Lille", who usually go for an experienced older hand, but, of course, change can be good. As I type, there has been very little transfer business in or out and what there has, has been low key. Their last CL campaign was in 24/25 when they were 5th in Ligue 1 and they will do well to replicate that IMO.
Racing Club Strasbourg: 8-9
We all know RCS well and ahead of last season I wrote .....
Strasbourg are "our" Ligue 1 team, or have been for the last two seasons, tracking them through the BlueCo (Chelsea) takeover and the appointment of Liam Rosenior as head coach 12 months ago. They finished 7th with 34 points (second only to PSG) coming through the second half of the campaign.
XP gave them 14 points fewer and xGA suggests they should have conceded 18 goals more. Last season they had the youngest squad in Ligue 1 at an average of 22.2 years of age.
This campaign will be interesting and could go either way, first up, they have those numbers to outrun yet again and they sold Habib Diarra to Sunderland for a big fee and another player to Chelsea, but he was immediately loaned back.
They have signed, wait for it, 10 players for a combined 100m€ and loaned three total from parent club Chelsea, the oldest of the 13 is 23yo and seven are teenagers. They have a 33 man squad as I type with an average age of 21.7 , the next youngest group in Ligue 1 comes in at 24.1! It is an incredibly exciting project and one I love, but they also have European football , albeit only the Conference League to deal with, but that makes for a lot of Thursday/Sunday football weeks. In some ways this season feels even more of a learning curve. I am sure they will feature in my notes a lot, but I feel they will do well to match last season's 7th place, but having said, that a couple of teams who finished above them last season might be in a spot of bother.
Rosenior moved to Chelsea midseason, he was replaced by another English coach in Gary O'Neil, who has now moved to Ipswich. He guided RCS to a respectable 8th place finish and the semi final of the Conference League and they came in 7th for xP which is where they finished the season before and given the turmoil at the club and so many youngsters, very respectable indeed. They again have the youngest squad in Ligue 1 (average age 22.0) and one of the biggest. Transfer window sounds familiar, selling two players to parent club Chelsea (!) for big fees, loaning two others back from them and signing a handful of promising youngsters...........same old. same old!
Main issue is that they are now on their third head coach and staff in nine months. Hugo Oliveira is the man charged with the task, he worked for 7 years under Marco Silva ( Watford/Everton/Fulham) and has been in the main job at Famalicao in Portugal for the last two years, guiding them to 5th place last season, their highest ever finish. He has never worked in France and this is a big step up, but he has modern tactics, likes to press high and get a lot of players around the ball and will play adventurously. No European football this season will help, especially given how the new head coach wants to play.
Lorient: 11-12
Lorient have finished as champions in their last two seasons in Ligue 2, but have finished 15th or lower in 6 of their last 7 campaigns at this level. However, they arrive in reasonable shape and with a good budget for a newly promoted team, better than six Ligue 1 rivals. XP also saw them as the best team in a competitive L2 by 7 points. They have kept their promotion squad together and experienced head coach Olivier Pantaloni has had two full seasons in Ligue 1 with teams he has led to promotion (one survived). They made their du Moustoir home a fortress last season with a 15-1-1 record and the small venue should continue to play to their strengths.
Only PSG and Marseille lost fewer home games. They are coming into this season with roughly the same budget and their expected numbers were very close to what they actually achieved. However, Olivier Pantaloni has moved to Nice, his replacement is Alexandre Dujeux who previously worked with Pantaloni at Ajaccio. Dujeux has had three successful seasons with Angers, guiding them to promotion in the first and 13th and 14th place in Ligue 1 subsequently and on a bottom two budget each year and that is a fantastic achievement. He will have more money to operate with at Lorient, but has to replace Pablo Pagis who has moved to PFC and his 10 goals and five assists will be missed and they only won three games last season without a contribution from him. I like Dujeux and they feel pretty stable, but no guarantee they will pick up the Pagis slack and a finish just above the drop zone feels the most likely finish and the head coach knows how to guide a team to lower mid table.
Good luck!
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