Falcao strike sinks Lorient

Monaco reclaimed top spot in Ligue 1 after an entertaining 1-0 win over Lorient at the Stade Louis II ahead of next week's trip to Paris.

Claudio Ranieri's men made it four wins from their opening five games thanks to Radamel Falcao who scored his fourth league goal of the season from the penalty spot early on. A third defeat for the visitors leaves Les Merlus without a point or a goal on their travels so far this season and languishing in the bottom half of the table. Monaco began the game at a frantic pace and both Joao Moutinho and Fabinho went desperately close in the opening minutes before Falcao was brought down in the area by Lorient goalkeeper Fabien Audard and referee Alexandre Castro pointed at the spot. The former Atletico Madrid star dusted himself down before calmly slotting the ball beyond Audard to send his title-chasing team into an early lead. The hosts continued to completley dominate the opening exchanges and Yannick Ferreira Carrasco almost doubled their lead on 10 minutes after Moutinho and the impressive Lucas Ocampo fashioned a decent opening. Lorient thought they had grabbed an equaliser against the run of play on 25 minutes but Sadio Diallo moved too early before converting and the linesman duly raised his flag. That scare did nothing to quell Monaco's thirst for a second though and Fabinho went agonisingly close when he latched onto Ocampos's ball from deep only to see his instictive effort come back off the post. Falcao almost grabbed his second 10 minutes into the second half when he was picked out by the busy Moutinho but he delayed after rounding Audard and the chance went begging. Lorient's best chance of the game came shortly after when Vincent Aboubakar combined with Fabien Robert to tee up Yann Jouffre but he blasted wide of Danijel Subasic's goal. Despite taking their foot off the gas, the hosts continued to threaten with Moutinho pulling the strings from midfield and Ocampos should have sealed all three points with 15 minutes left to play but the young Argentinian blazed over from a promising position.