Lille will seek to get out of a slow beginning in Ligue 1 when they play their next fixture against Le Havre at the Stade Oceane on Saturday.
On next week at home to Real Madrid, Genesio will be expecting his side to come out of this current barren streak here.
In perhaps one of the most successful weeks for Ligue 1 French clubs in a while two weeks ago all the other teams in the Champions League besides Lille secured victories on match day one.
Lille returned to European football’s elite competition in the worst possible manner with a 2-0 reversal at home to Portuguese side Sporting and also threw away a two-goal lead to draw in the League last weekend.
Just as in the later stages of this Ligue 1 campaign, Lens rose above their relegation-threatened rivals in a topsy-turvy stalemate at Strasbourg, where Lille led 2-0 early only to needed a 90th minute Jonathan David penalty kick to earn a 3-3 tie.
While that result halted a run of successive defeats the French side remain five games without victory and barely clear of the bottom half of Ligue 1 with just seven points.
Losing nine in a row marks Les Dogues’ poorest start to a top-flight campaign since the 2017/18 season, and failing to bag a point here could make that sequence quite lengthy when it is considered that Rudi Garcia’s side will play a match against on Wednesday.
The Real Madrid of Europe’s champions will be the side at Stade Pierre-Mauroy in the Champions League next week and any side would enter that match against the Spanish giants with a six-game winless streak, which makes the match huge.
While Le Havre was defeated with 3-1 at Monaco in the previous round, Digard should be delighted by a spirited display against one of the top teams in Ligue 1.
Le Havre was very unfortunate to leave the principality empty-handed, having had a goal disallowed by VAR in the second half that would have given them a 2-1 lead. Monaco had just defeated Barcelona a few days prior.
Le Havre has done admirably to gather as many points as they have thus far in a season that has been difficult to navigate in terms of fixtures.
Having two wins so far has been very valuable, but that is still only enough to place Digard's team in 12th place ahead of this weekend's action, level on points with Strasbourg and Brest. Digard's team will now play two more of the top four teams from last season, having already played Monaco and Paris Saint-Germain.
Since February, no team has lost as many games as Le Havre, who lost 13 of their previous 19 Ligue 1 games due to a dismal finish to the previous campaign. The only team in Europe's top five leagues with more losses during that period is Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Having lost their last five meetings against Le Havre, Lille is undoubtedly a dangerous team for Le Havre as well. This might be the first time since 1951 that the hosts have lost six straight games against Les Dogues.
Le Havre has failed to score a goal in their last four encounters at Stade Oceane, and if they fail to do so once more, it will be the first time in club history that they have failed to score in five straight home games against the same opponents.
Le Havre signed mostly young players who haven't yet made an appearance in the starting lineup over the summer, doing nothing to bolster their roster.
Christopher Operi is preferred at left wing-back, while Yanis Zouaoui has not played a minute since making his debut in the victory against St. Etienne late last month.
Etienne Youte Kinkoue and Andy Logbo, who has missed all of 2024 due to a major knee injury, are the only players missing for the hosts going into this game.
Edon Zhegrova, who scored twice in Lille's recent loss to PSG and in both of their Champions League knockout matches against Slavia Prague, continues to be the team's shining light amid a trying time. He scored the first two goals against Strasbourg last week.
