Olympique Lyon will welcome relegation-threatened Montpellier as the French Ligue 1 returns. The hosts, chasing European qualification, sit fifth in the standings whereas their visitors are rock bottom. Below is our prediction for this match.

Lyon beat Feignies Aulnoye 2-1 in the Coupe de France last time out. The win kept them on course for a second successive final in the Cup. Pierre Sage’s men have been in great form, only losing twice in 17 games across all competitions.

Les Gones have won 11 times in this period with six of those victories coming in the league.

Montpellier have been the weakest team in the French topflight and are in danger of dropping to the second tier. La Paillade have lost a league worst 10 matches and only twice have they managed to claim all three points.

Sitting bottom with nine points, Jean-Louis Gasset’s men are five points from safety. Montpellier, who are yet to win away from home, haven’t won any of their last five fixtures either.

It, however, hasn’t been all doom and gloom in this run. This is because they have avoided defeat twice thanks to similar two-all draws with Lille and Nice. Montpellier are coming off a shock 4-0 thumping away to fourth tier side Le Puy Foot in the Coupe de France.

Mozambican midfielder Geny Catamo finished off a well-worked team goal one minute shy of the half-hour mark before Sporting Lisbon held on to their slender lead to see out the win and reclaim top spot in the Primeira Liga table.

Prior to that, Benfica were on a run of nine back-to-back games without defeat across all competitions, picking up seven wins and two draws since a 1-0 loss at the hands of Bayern Munich in the Champions League on November 6.

The result at the Estadio Jose Alvalade also saw As Aguias’ 14-game unbeaten run in the Primeira Liga come to an end, a run stretching back to August 11, when they fell to a 2-0 loss against Famalicao on the opening weekend.

Bruno Lage‘s men will look to build upon their solid first half of the season in their quest for a 39th Primeira Liga title as they sit third in the table with 38 points from 16 matches, two points behind first-placed Sporting Lisbon.

Benfica’s first outing of the year sees them return home, where they boast a 100% record in the league this season, winning each of their eight matches while scoring 26 goals and conceding just three so far.

After falling behind to Telasco Segovia‘s 40th-minute opener, Amine El Ouazzani netted on the stroke of half time to draw the home side level, but Nuno Moreira struck in the 70th minute to hand Casa Pia a third consecutive victory to close out the year.

This followed a 2-0 victory over 10-man Santa Clara at the Estadio de Sao Miguel on December 22, when Bruma netted a second-half brace to end Os Arcebispos’ run of three straight games without a win across all competitions.

Braga have now lost four of their 16 Primeira Liga games this season while claiming eight wins and four draws to collect 28 points and sit fifth in the table, two points behind fourth-placed Santa Clara in the Conference League qualifying spot.

While Carlos Carvalhal‘s side will be looking to get the new year underway on a high, next up is the challenge of an opposing side who have won each of their last four encounters, scoring eight goals and conceding three since a penalty-shootout defeat in the Taca de Portugal quarter-finals back in April 2023.

Benfica remain without the services of Portuguese forward Tiago Gouveia, who continues his long road to full fitness after suffering a shoulder injury against Estrela Amadora back in August.

Despite their disappointing defeat against rivals Sporting Lisbon last time out, we expect Lage to name an unchanged XI this weekend, with Angel Di Maria, Orkun Kokcu, Kerem Akturkoglu and Zeki Amdouni forming the attacking quartet.

Alexander Bah, Tomas Araujo, Nicolas Otamendi and Alvaro Carreras should retain their roles at the defensive end of the pitch while Florentino Luis and 29-year-old Fredrik Aursnes should team up in midfield.

As for Braga, they head into their first outing of the new year with a clean bill of health and no suspension concerns, giving Carvalhal the luxury of a full-strength squad at his disposal.

El Ouazzani has enjoyed a solid debut campaign, netted five goals in 10 league starts since his summer move from Guingamp, and the Moroccan forward should lead Os Arcebispos’ attack, alongside Bruma and skipper Ricardo Horta.

Benfica possible starting lineup:
Trubin; Bah, Araujo, Otamendi, Carreras; Luis, Aursnes; Di Maria, Kokcu, Akturkoglu; Amdouni

Braga possible starting lineup:
Lima; Ferreira, Bambu, Niakate; Fernandes, Zalazar, Moutinho, Ribeiro; Horta, El Ouazzani, Bruma

Goztepe managed to score 4 goals at the Tupras Stadyumu against Besiktas as well as 3 at third in the league Samsunspor so no reason they can’t score 1 or 2 against this Galatasaray side that score goals for fun but also do concede especially at home this season with 13 goals in 9 games conceded – only Kayserispor and Adana Demirspor have conceded more at home. 10 out of those 13 goals have come in the second half of games so are prone to lapses of concentration later in games. 4 out of the last 5 meetings between these two have seen at least 4 goals scored and the last meeting ended 3-2 to Galatasaray back in 2022. Tijanic and Romulo can cause this Gala defence problems but ultimately expect a 3-2, 4-2 type win for the hosts, 3-1 at worse.

According to Flashcore, Aston Villa kept just two clean sheets in their last 24 Premier League games. So it comes as no surprise with me taking both teams scoring here as Leicester is in poor form defensively, even out of shape City won 2-0 at Leicester last round, Wolves won there 3-0, Newcastle defeated them at home with 4-0, but they did score while losing 3-1 at Liverpool, or won 3-1 with West Ham and also drew 2-2 with Brighton.

The league resumes in Spain after a short break. I watched not so long ago Real Madrid host Sevilla, they were really already in vacation in terms of defending, conceding two goals with ease, and I was really not impressed with Courtois in goal gifting the 2nd goal pretty much, while Real Madrid missed many scoring chances, quite big ones, but did manage to score 4 goals till the end and win 4-2.