JUMPERS

Christmas jumpers were, somehow, fashionable for a while in the middle part of the last decade. Big questions need to be asked of anyone still wearing one in 2020, unless they choose to do so out of respect for the standout performers so far in this Ligue 1 season. And there have been plenty of them. Here are just a few:

Lyon’s front three

Lyon have emerged as genuine title contenders thanks to a tremendous run of form: 13 games unbeaten prior to Wednesday’s home clash with FC Nantes. And Rudi Garcia’s front three has been central to their success.

Memphis Depay, Karl Toko-Ekambi and Tino Kadewere have scored 22 goals between them, more than 11 entire Ligue 1 teams. Skipper Depay and Toko-Ekambi have each found the net eight times, while Zimbabwe’s Kadewere has six goals since making the step up to the top flight from Ligue 2 Le Havre.

Can their title challenge last the course? Much may depend on whether they can keep hold of Depay in the January transfer window, but Moussa Dembélé is waiting in the wings and, while he has just one goal this season, he has shown in the past that he can deliver when called upon.

Sven Botman

There were understandable concerns about how LOSC would cope this season after selling their outstanding Brazilian defender Gabriel to Arsenal before the campaign began. However, Lille have become experts in recent years at selling players on at a profit and replacing them with new gems. Sven Botman is just the latest example of their remarkable eye for talent.

The young Dutchman was virtually unheard of outside the Netherlands when Lille signed him in the summer. After spending last season on loan at SC Heerenveen, the towering 20-year-old centre-back was signed on loan from Ajax, a deal that was rapidly turned into a permanent transfer for a reported fee of €8 million.

That is not much more than a quarter of what Arsenal are understood to have paid for Gabriel, but Botman has slotted in seamlessly alongside José Fonte in the heart of Christophe Galtier’s back line and the solidity of that defence has been central to Lille’s success so far this season.

Stade Brestois 29

There has been plenty of competition, but Brest have been the great entertainers of the season so far. The Brittany side scored 27 goals in their first 16 matches, a tally bettered only by the top three. Yet they also conceded 29 goals in that time. Only struggling Nîmes Olympique conceded more.

They may have one of the smallest budgets in the division but Brest have assembled an exciting team under coach Olivier Dall’Oglio, with the likes of left-back Romain Perraud and wide midfielder Romain Faivre among the breakthrough stars of the season so far. Steve Mounié has wasted little time making an impact in attack after returning from a spell in English football.

Brest started the season by losing 4-0 in Nîmes and 3-2 at home to Olympique de Marseille but have since beaten the likes of AS Monaco and Lille while also holding Lyon to a draw away from home. Despite that they are only in mid-table but they will be hoping to keep entertaining in the second half of the season.

TURKEYS

Turkeys are not just a delicious Christmas staple in many countries. Here are some of those whose, ahem, fowl play has marked the first few months of the season:

Marseille in Europe

OM’s start to the domestic season has been so impressive that they can still hope to make a genuine push for the title, especially with two games in hand remaining to be played. André Villas-Boas’s side have only lost to Saint-Etienne and Rennes, and a run of six successive victories from mid-October to mid-December underlined their credentials.

After coming second in the last, curtailed campaign, Marseille will be hoping at the very least for another top-three finish and a return to the Champions League. After all, they have unfinished business in that competition after once again failing to do themselves justice in Europe’s elite club competition.

On their return to the Champions League for the first time in seven years, Marseille seemed to have a good chance of at least competing in a group containing Manchester City, FC Porto and Olympiakos. However, they lost their first four games to make it 13 consecutive defeats in the competition, an outright record in the Champions League era. They finished with five defeats out of six, and just three points, finishing bottom of their section to be eliminated from Europe altogether.

The positive? Having no European football to distract them in the new year may boost their chances of challenging for the title in the second half of the campaign.

Nice

Big things were expected at Nice this season after owners Ineos sanctioned a big summer spending spree. Close to €30 million was spent on seven new signings, with France midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin returning to Ligue 1 from Everton. But the Côte d’Azur side have slid into the bottom half, especially struggling to cope once faced with the added demands of a Europa League campaign.

Severely handicapped by the loss of skipper and defensive lynchpin Dante to a season-ending knee injury, Nice embarked on a five-match losing streak which cost coach Patrick Vieira his job in early December. He has been replaced by his assistant Adrian Ursea, but Nice need more - much more - from the likes of Kasper Dolberg and Schneiderlin in the second half of the campaign if they are to start climbing the table again.

Christian Gourcuff

Gourcuff’s achievements at FC Lorient - where he spent quarter of a century in charge in total over three separate spells - must never be forgotten. That they are a top-flight club today is largely down to the work he did there starting in the 1980s. But he has not come close to repeating that success since leaving Lorient for the last time in 2014.

After stints with Algeria, at Stade Rennais FC and, briefly, in Qatar, he took over at FC Nantes at the beginning of last season. How Les Canaris, eight times French champions, have been crying out for someone to lead them back to something like their glory days. Gourcuff was not that man.

Nantes were 13th when the last campaign was cut short in March and they were 14th, with 13 points from 13 games, when Gourcuff was sacked at the start of December. He oversaw just three wins this season before being dismissed, a 4-0 home hammering by RC Strasbourg Alsace proving the final straw.