Šulc doubles up as Lyon beat Monaco

Olympique Lyonnais took advantage of several key absences to get a 3-1 win over AS Monaco on Saturday, a result that lifts them to within two points of the top four. Catch up on all the action from the Stade-Louis II with our match recap.

Absences and injuries dog Monaco

Monaco entered this match in a bad run of form, and between absentees from AFCON (Krépin Diatta, Lamine Camara) injuries (Takumi Minamino) and suspension (Denis Zakaria) had rather limited options to face a hungry young Lyon side. Monaco would have the first effort of the match through Aleksandr Golovin, but were disappointed to see veteran goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky go off injuried early doors (12').

His replacement, Philipp Köhn, made a pair of fine saves but could do nothing to keep out Pavel Sulc on 38'. The Czech winger scored with a magnificent header from a corner to give Lyon the lead somewhat against the run of play. Monaco had a response, though, as some fine pressing from Folarin Balogun lead to Mamadou Coulibaly leveling the match in first-half stoppage time.

⚽️ Third brace of the season
⚽️ 8 goals in Ligue 1
⚽️ Unštoppable

PAVEL ŠULC. 🇨🇿 pic.twitter.com/HnoemoLlHB
— Ligue 1 English (@Ligue1_ENG) January 3, 2026

Šulc strikes again

Into the second half, Monaco, buoyed by Coulibaly's equalizer, looked the more dangerous, and Folarin Balogun did well to force a save (51') from Greif. On the resulting corner, Thilo Kehrer thought he'd given his side the lead with a header, but match official Jerome Brisard quickly ruled it out for a foul in the buildup, a decision that was validated by VAR.

Monaco's frustration was then soon doubled, as Šulc netted his second goal of the match (and eighth of the season). After a clever layoff by Ainsley Maitland-Niles, the Czechia international hit a rasping shot into the bottom corner. Monaco tried to respond, but their task was made more difficult by the sending off of goalscorer Coulibaly for a high boot on Nicolás Tagliafico, who was thankfully uninjured on the play.

Monaco then sealed the result with a rare goal from the Brazilian Abner, who was deployed in midfield on the evening and who netted was was just his second goal since signing for Lyon with ten minutes to play. With the win, Lyon now have won three of four ahead of their big Coupe de France clash against Lille this weekend, while Monaco slipped to their sixth defeat in seven, and could find themselves in the bottom half of the table pending Angers' match tomorrow.