Joe Cole supplied a magnificent assist after coming off the bench to set the seal on Lille’s 3-1 victory over 10-man Saint-Etienne on his Ligue 1 debut on Saturday.
Eden Hazard had threatened to eclipse Cole with a superb second-half brace, but the Englishman set up the third goal for Ludovic Obraniak with a brilliant dribble through the home defense.
“It was very, very good,” Cole said in a post-match interview with Canal+.
“I enjoyed playing with my teammates. The way they play is very beautiful. [Hazard] is a very, very special player.”
Marseille, in contrast, slumped to a 1-0 home loss to Rennes, for whom Jires Kembo-Ekoko fired home the only goal 14 minutes from time, leaving Marseille on a meager three points, just two off the foot of the table and winless from their opening five matches.
A second straight loss for last year’s champions upped the pressure on coach Didier Deschamps ahead of a midweek Champions League meeting with Olympiakos, while Rennes are joint fourth and only a point off the summit.
Lille, meanwhile, had fallen behind in sorry fashion in the seventh minute, with David Rozehnal inadvertently guiding Fabien Lemoine’s low cross beyond his own goalkeeper Mickael Landreau.
The momentum tipped in favor of the visitors in the 35th minute, however, when Saint-Etienne right-back Loris Nery was shown a straight red card for a dangerous, ankle-high foul on Franck Beria.
Hazard equalized in the 54th minute, wriggling past a posse of defenders before beating goalkeeper Stephane Ruffier.
Elsewhere on Saturday, Ajaccio claimed their first three points since returning to the top flight, with a 3-1 defeat of Valenciennes that left the beaten side rooted to the bottom of the table.
The pressure was already on Real Madrid coach Xabi Alonso before their 2-1 defeat to Manchester City on Wednesday in the UEFA Champions League raised further questions about his future. Arsenal remain perfect in this season’s competition and three points clear at the top of the standings after a 3-0 win against Club Brugge, while defending champions Paris Saint-Germain were held 0-0 at Athletic Bilbao. The clash between Madrid and City was the standout game of the round amid reports this week that Alonso had lost control of the locker room. Speculation over his position is likely to intensify after the latest
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