Currently ninth on the Ligue 1 Conforama table, RC Strasbourg Alsace boast the fourth-best attack in the division after nine rounds, their attacking mindset firing a super start to the season.
After returning to the country’s top flight in the summer of 2017 – after a nine-year absence – RC Strasbourg Alsace are off to a flyer in their sophomore season. Ninth on the league table, the4 team from Alsace have collected 12 points from nine matches – exactly double their haul form the same stage of the last campaign – a testament to their big improvement in attack.
A 34-year-old record
With 16 goals scored, Racing have the fourth-best attack in the division, trailing only PSG (32), OM (21) and LOSC (17). This is a huge feat for the club, who haven’t struck as many times at this stage of a campaign in the last 34 years (16 goals in 1984-85). Whereas they averaged 1.16 goals per match last season, they have been finding the net on an average of 1.78 times per match in the 2018-19 season.
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In fact, only one club so far this season have managed to prevent RCSA from scoring: Olympique Lyonnais, at the Groupama Stadium in Week 3 (2-0). Since that match, Thierry Laurey’s men have scored in all six of their Ligue 1 Conforama matches – the longest such run fro the club in this competition since 2006 (11 matches between 11 January and 1 April).
Da Costa-Mothiba getting the job done
That RC Strasbourg Alsace have discovered such form is due in no small part to the attacking duo of Lebo Mothiba and Nuno Da Costa, who between them have scored half of the club’s goals this season. Both players currently sit in the top ten on the Ligue 1 Conforama scorers chart and form the club’s most prolific strike duo since Mamadou Niang and Danijel Ljuboja (nine goals between the two of them in 2003-04).
However, this attacking verve is not distracting Racing from their principal objective: beating the drop. Collecting points remains the absolute priority in order to avoid the stress inherent in fighting it out at the bottom of the table.
After finishing 15th last season, the Alsatian club is hoping to do better this time around, as Laurey declared in the preseason: “It will be tough for us once again this season. A top-ten finish would be miraculous. If we finish 12th or 13th, that’s fine by me. The main thing is to do better than last time.”
Henry test
Thanks to an in-form attack, RCSA are currently outdoing their coach’s predictions… a trend they will be out to confirm as they take on Week 10 Ligue 1 Conforama visitors AS Monaco in Thierry Henry’s first match in charge since taking over from Leonardo Jardim (Saturday, 20 October at 20:00).
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