Lorient vs Stade Reims Prediction: Reims’ Mentality should be questioned

Lorient seems to be coming off on the right side after a bad spell that lasted for almost 3 months. Although it's too early to conclude that they are totally out of the woods following the draw and win in their last 2 games, Lorient can feel confident of the game ahead of them as they hope to build a consistent result. They face Stade Reims in this match and Reims is beyond doubt a better team in every respect. 

Stade Reims are an ambitious team from the looks of it, but those ambitions, which was mainly the qualification for either of Europe's Tournament, has been hampered by poor results in their last 2 games. At the moment, the situation is still recoverable but they need to make a stand and get back to winning ways. Stade Reims will take on Lorient at the Stade Yves Allainmat-Le Moustoir in their bid to get back to winning ways, while Lorient have the relegation battle as their major motivation for this clash.

Lorient

Lorient are underdogs against the 16 teams that currently sit above them on the table, so they are pretty much underdogs against Stade Reims. They had been on a terrible run throughout the end of last year until last weekend when they finally got their first win. Lorient found a way to snatch a win while playing away from home against Metz FC. 

Lorient took an early lead through Mohammed Bamba in the 17th minute and then they conceded 5 minutes later, with Didier Lamkel Zé drawing both sides level. And in the 58th minute, Lorient got back into the lead through Panos Kasteris and that was all for the game as it ended 2-1 at full time. So they ended an 11-game winless run with a strong performance. 

Lorient’s next opponent is Stade Reims, and they will have a tough task because of the quality that the team possesses. Lorient have not beaten Reims in their last 5 meetings against each other on both home and away grounds. 

Lorient sit in 16th position, with 16 points in 20 matches. 

Stade Reims

Stade Reims will hope the task ahead of them is as easy as it looks. Despite their recent poor form, they take comfort in the fact that Lorient are currently in the relegation zone after a long period of woeful results. So, Stade Reims come into the game as favorites to get the much-needed win.

Stade Reims have been disappointing in recent weeks and a highlight was their loss to Sochaux in the Coupe de France. That was followed by a draw against Nantes and a defeat against Toulouse last weekend at home. 

It was a bizarre first half for Reims against Toulouse, as a result they conceded 3 goals in the first half of the game. Christian Mawissa, Shavy Warren Babicka and Thijs Dallinga gave Toulouse a comfortable 3 goal cushion in the first half. Stade Reims managed to respond by pulling 2 goals back through Teddy Teuma and Sergio Akieme, but they fell a goal short and ended up losing the game 3:2. They will need a better approach in this game if they are to avoid such a catastrophe occuring again.

At the moment, Stade Reims are in 7th place with 30 points from 20 matches.

Head to Head

Lorient and Stade Reims have played a total of 19 matches against each other. Both Lorient and Stade Reims have 6 wins each and they played a draw in 7 matches.

Analysis and Predictions

Despite Stade Reims being the favorites according to the bookmakers, it's still difficult to analyze the psychology of the team at the moment. They need a big result here but they need to show the right mentality to get it. And for Toulouse, they breathe a temporary sigh of relief, but they are going to need more efforts to grind out another win against Stade Reims. 

From their past meetings, Stade Reims remained unbeaten in the last 5 meetings and they played less than 10.5 corners in 5 of their last 7 matches.

• Lorient to Play Over 3.5 Corners at 1.64 Odds
• Both Teams to Score at 1.87 Odds
• Both Teams to Score at 1.75 Odds