Match Reports
Jonathan David Boosts Lille's Champions League Hopes With Win Over AJA
Thomas Meunier opened the scoring for Lille in the ninth minute to set the tone for the contest. Lucas Chevalier sent a long ball to Jonathan David, who shielded it perfectly from Jubal. The Canadian laid it off to his fullback, who beat Donovan Léon with a low, right-footed shot.
After conceding early, the visitors tightened up at the back and looked poised to reach halftime down by just one. But David struck in the 43rd minute to double Lille's lead.
Matias Fernandez-Pardo did well to pull in the Auxerre defense before slipping a perfect pass to Jonathan David, who fired into the top corner past Léon. It was David's first goal for LOSC in over a month—his last coming against Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League on March 12.
Neither side was able to break through for most of the second half, but in the final minutes Auxerre did cut the deficit to one goal as they were eyeing a comeback to take one point.
Lassine Sinayoko got past Meunier and Alexsandro, and while the Brazilian managed to recover and catch up, he accidentally beat Lucas Chevalier with an own goal in second-half stoppage time.
When AJA hoped they could salvage a point, David struck again to secure all three points for the home side. Set up by Osame Sahraoui with a well-timed pass, the 25-year-old scored to seal his brace.
Following the loss, AJA's Assane Diousse El Hadji shared his thoughts on the result during a post-match interview with DAZN.
"They were good on the counterattacks, we couldn’t stop them. They defended well too, they made the efforts. (…) On defensive recoveries, we need to come back faster. At the top level, we see that if we do things halfway, it hurts."
Lille's win moves them into a Champions League qualifying spot, just one point behind AS Monaco and two points behind Olympique de Marseille, keeping them well within reach of the two automatic spots.
Despite the win though, Les Dogues need to worry about Olympique Lyonnais as they can move into fourth place with a win over AS Saint-Étienne.
The Stat: 53
After the win over AJA, Bruno Genesio became the first coach to reach 53 points after his first 30 matches in charge of Lille in Ligue 1 McDonald's since René Girard in 2014 (54).
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