Thauvin boosts Marseille as Lyon lose more ground

PARIS: Florian Thauvin extended his brilliant run of goalscoring form to earn Marseille a 1-0 win over a resurgent Bordeaux on Sunday and reinforce their push for Champions League football next season.

Thauvin headed in a corner from Dimitri Payet on 35 minutes at the Velodrome to match last season’s career-best return of 15 league goals and keep Marseille within a point of Monaco in second.

Rudi Garcia’s team have lost just once in Ligue 1 dating back to September going into next Sunday’s showdown at bitter rivals and runaway leaders Paris Saint-Germain.

OM will then meet PSG again at the Parc des Princes just three days later in the quarter-finals of the French Cup.

Defeat for Bordeaux ended a four-match winning streak and marked the first suffered under new coach Gustavo Poyet, who replaced the sacked Jocelyn Gourvennec last month.

Bertrand Traore struck twice but Lyon fell further behind their rivals for a Champions League berth after surrendering a twogoal lead a 2-2 draw at struggling Lille.

Burkina Faso forward Traore, who joined from Chelsea last July, hit a first-half double as Lyon looked on course for a welcome victory following three successive league defeats.

But goals after the break from Nicolas Pepe and Brazilian striker Luiz Araujo earned Christophe Galtier’s side a point that left Lille just one place above the relegation zone.

Lyon looked the side most capable of troubling Paris SaintGermain after beating the league leaders in January, but a subsequent rotten run of form has left them six points adrift of thirdplaced Marseille.

Nice captain Dante scored his first Ligue 1 goal for the club in a 1-1 draw with Claudio Ranieri’s Nantes to snap a four-match losing run.

The result bumped Nantes back up to fifth, while Mario Balotelli’s Nice -- who lost 3-2 to Lokomotiv Moscow in the Europa League on Thursday -- are ninth after halting their recent slide.