Angers SCO picked up their third win in five matches with a 3-0 triumph over OGC Nice. Stéphane Bahoken (p.g. 44′), Angelo Fulgini (47′) and Cristian Lopez (90+2′) got the goals for Stéphane Moulin’s side.
Angers SCO 3-0 OGC Nice 
THE MATCH
Nice began the day in seventh, five places and seven points better off than their hosts, and they looked the stronger team for the first half-hour at the Stade Raymond Kopa. Patrick Burner flashed a shot narrowly wide of Ludovic Butelle’s post (11’) before the ‘keeper pulled off a fine save to deny Christophe Jallet who had let fly after getting the break of the ball on the edge of the box (25’). An early injury to Wilfried Kanga had forced Moulin’s hand not long before, with Flavien Tait entering the fray and Les Scoïstes reverting to the 5-4-1 that had served them so well in beating RC Strasbourg Alsace last Saturday. Cheikh N’Doye had their first shot on Nice’s goal, his volley deflecting narrowly wide (28’). Baptiste Santamaria then flashed a shot over the bar (30’) before Angers deservedly took the lead. Jallet got more man than ball when attempting to tackle Fulgini in the box, and Bahoken – who graduated from Nice’s youth academy – gladly stepped up to stroke home the resulting spot-kick (44’).
No looking back in Angers
The second half was just two minutes old when the hosts doubled their advantage. N’Doye found Abdoulaye Bamba down the right flank, the Côte d’Ivoire right-back crossed for Fulgini, and the midfielder had little trouble hammering home his third goal of the season from close range (47’). Vincent Manceau then looked odds on to head home Angers’ third after getting on the end of a Bahoken cross, but Malang Sarr did brilliantly to recover the situation for the visitors (52’). Wylan Cyprien forced a save from Butelle at the other end with a late free-kick (68’), but most of the second-half traffic was flowing in the other direction, and after Tait had seen a free-kick deflected clear (81’), Lopez added gloss to the scoreline, heading home Ismaël Traoré’s cross (90+2’) to complete a fine 3-0 win for the hosts.
THE PLAYER: Stéphane Bahoken
Bahoken only made 16 appearances in three years as a senior player at Nice before going from St. Mirren in Scotland to Strasbourg, then in the French third tier, in an attempt to recover his career. Now, five years after leaving his first club, he finds himself a full Cameroon international with eight Ligue 1 Conforama goals to his name.
THE STAT: 4
This was Angers’ first win over Nice in four attempts. The last time Les Scoïstes picked up all three points against Les Aiglons was in May 2017, when N’Doye and Karl Toko Ekambi – now of Villarreal – scored in a 2-0 win at the Allianz Riviera.
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