Ligue 1 round-up: Memphis carries form over to shine in gameweek one

With last season’s top four all off the mark with three points in Ligue 1, and not a single draw to speak of in the opening weekend’s action in France, we run through the best and worst performers from gameweek one.

The game of the round undoubtedly took place at Angers, who led 3-1 with 15 minutes remaining against newly promoted Nimes, only for the visitors to complete a heroic turnaround to win 4-3. The star of the show was right winger Sada Thioub, who had given Bernard Blaquart’s side an early lead after just four minutes and laid on the third goal and equaliser for Renaud Ripart with just five minutes remaining.

The 23-year-old completed five dribbles, created two chances and completed misplaced just one of his 27 pass attempts over 90 minutes to earn a man of the match rating of 8.85.

Meanwhile, starting the new campaign the way he ended the last, Memphis Depay was back among the goals as Lyon secured a 2-0 victory over Amiens. The Dutchman netted in the 75th minute to end the underdogs chances of getting back into the game after Bertrand Traore had handed Bruno Genesio’s side a first half lead. Memphis had four attempts at goal in total, created four chances for teammates and completed three dribbles to earn a WhoScored.com rating of 8.86.

Top of the leaderboard, however, is Nicolas Pepe, whose importance to Lille continues to grow. The young Ivory Coast international scored 13 times last season, with only one of said goals coming in defeat - a quite remarkable fact given the club finished just one point above the drop zone last season. The 23-year-old didn’t score until November last season but is off the mark already this time around and registered an assist to boot in a 3-1 win over Rennes, completing five dribbles to secure a rating of 8.92 - the best in Ligue 1’s opening fixtures.

While for the rest of his teammates the match at Angers ended in jubilation, left-back Florian Miguel will have been fearing that he had blown his sides chances of a comeback at the Stage Raymond-Kopa. The youngster was sent off for a second bookable offence minutes after the visitors had scored their second goal to put pressure on their hosts, committing three fouls in total without so much as making a tackle. A subsequent score of 4.72 was the lowest from gameweek one in France.