Lorient stroll past Nancy

Lorient consolidated their spot near the top of the Ligue 1 standings with a convincing 3-0 home win over Nancy.

Lorient consolidated their spot near the top of the Ligue 1 standings with a convincing 3-0 home victory over Nancy. Goals from Ludovic Giuly, Lamine Kone and Alain Traore sealed the victory for Lorient, who would have been celebrating an even bigger triumph but for a missed first-half penalty from Traore. The triumph leaves unbeaten Lorient with eight points from four games, two behind current leaders Lyon and one behind Marseille, who will look to continue their 100% start against Rennes tomorrow. Nancy have now taken just one point from three games following their opening-day triumph over Brest. It might have been a different story today, though, if Nancy defender Salif Sane had made the most of his chance on the edge of the area, but Lorient goalkeeper Fabien Audard got down well to make a decent save. After that it was largely all Lorient, with Lucas Mareque being denied by Nancy goalkeeper Guy N'dy Assembe in the 13th minute before veteran forward Giuly put the hosts ahead six minutes later with a low shot. Lorient had a great chance to double their lead in the 32nd minute when Sane fouled Yann Jouffre inside the area but Traore slammed the resulting penalty against the left-hand post. The hosts had no need to be concerned though as two minutes later they had doubled their lead when Traore made amends for his miss by setting up Kone to head home. Nancy briefly threatened again in the 58th minute when Joel Sami fired in a low shot which Audard needed two attempts to save, but Lorient were back on the attack soon after with Assembe denying Kone before Jouffre curled a shot inches over. Assembe then kept out a powerful Traore effort, but just as it looked as though it was not going to be the Lorient striker's day, the Burkina Faso international finally got himself on the scoresheet in the 84th minute with a brilliant free-kick from outside the area that found the top corner.