Subotic wins it for Sainté in Dijon

Dijon FCO  0 – 1  AS Saint-Etienne

THE MATCH

Saint-Etienne headed to Burgundy seeking revenge for their humiliating 6-3 home defeat at the hands of the same opponents in the Coupe de France round of 32 last month. They did just that thanks to Subotic, who scored in the 64th minute.

Wahbi Khazri delivered a corner from the right and Subotic, standing almost on the penalty spot, was left unmarked to volley home from 12 yards past Bobby Allain for his first Ligue 1 Conforama goal since March last year.

That was enough to win it for the visitors, whose night was nevertheless marred by the sight of Gabriel Silva going off on a stretcher with what looked like a serious ankle injury.

With Mathieu Debuchy, Romain Hamouma and Kévin Monnet-Paquet among the players already out injured here, Sainté coach Jean-Louis Gasset will hope the Brazilian is not too badly hurt.

Dijon denied at death

Dijon briefly thought they had drawn level in the fourth minute of added time when Cédric Yambéré had the ball in the net, but he was offside when Naïm Sliti played the ball through and the flag came up to stop short the celebrations.

A third straight Ligue 1 Conforama defeat leaves Antoine Kombouaré’s side in the bottom three going into their Cup quarter-final at Paris Saint-Germain, while Saint-Etienne are provisionally fourth after a second win in three outings.

THE PLAYER: Neven Subotic

The Serbian defender missed last weekend’s home loss to PSG and had reportedly not trained this week due to illness. He was back here, though, and marked it with his first goal in almost a year. That gave ASSE a precious win in the fight for Europe, but speaking immediately afterwards he admitted the performance was not up to the standard of a team with aspirations of playing in continental competition.

THE STAT: 8

Dijon have played Saint-Etienne eight times in the top flight and never won, with this their sixth defeat. At least they have the memory of that Cup victory.

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