Brest vs St Etienne Predictions

• There have been fewer than four goals in nine of the last 11 Brest matches.
• Only three teams in Ligue 1 have a lower xG at home than Brest.
• Although St Etienne have conceded nine goals in their last four away games, five of those were when down to ten men.

Brest and St Etienne going in opposite directions 

Brest are one of the most in-form teams in Ligue 1 right now after an incredible turnaround to their season, which began as badly as Saint-Etienne’s has become.

The two sides appear to be going in different directions ahead of Wednesday’s meeting in Brittany and plenty will be happy to take the short price about a home win.

Brest have won four on the bounce and recorded back-to-back wins with a clean sheet against Monaco and Lens in their last couple at Stade Francis-Le Blé. Having been on pace to concede just as many goals as during last year’s 17th place finish over the first quarter of the season, Michel Der Zakarian’s side have now shipped just four in their last six games – a result of greater cohesion and more defending from the front.

Yet the attacking numbers at home are still not quite as convincing as you would think with Brest still among the four clubs with the lowest xG at home this season.

Les Verts’ defensive woes skewed by red cards

Les Verts have sunk to the bottom of the table and arrive on the back of a 3-1 home defeat to Paris St Germain, but the match turned on a controversial red card for Timothee Kolodziejczak. He became the third player they’d had sent off in their last nine games and unsurprisingly all three results were exacerbated by those moments.

Some 40% of the goals St Etienne have conceded in the past two months have been when a man down, so we need to take that into consideration when assessing their chances of keeping Brest out this week.

Claude Puel’s men can certainly do themselves justice defensively with a bit more luck and we are minded to back fewer than four goals in this game instead of the home win. Les Verts currently average exactly one goal a game on their travels with Brest scoring at a rate of 1.7 on home turf. A 2-1 home win has merit in the correct score betting, but we feel this could be much closer than the match odds suggest.

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