Bordeaux win 3-2 to go three points clear
BORDEAUX (Reuters) - Girondins Bordeaux struggled to a 3-2 victory at home against Le Mans to move three points clear at the top of Ligue 1 on Saturday.
Bordeaux''s ninth successive win in the league put them on 74 points, three ahead of Olympique Marseille, who host Olympique Lyon on Sunday.
Marseille will go back to the top on goal difference if they beat the outgoing champions.
Third-placed Lyon are now 10 points behind Bordeaux and cannot be crowned champions for an eighth year in a row.
Paris St Germain are fourth, one point behind Lyon, before hosting AJ Auxerre later on Saturday.
Bordeaux had to wait until the last 15 minutes to prevail over Le Mans, who opened the scoring and then made it 2-2 with an Anthony Le Tallec double.
"(Le Mans) made things more complicated for us but that is a good result even if we had to struggle to get it," Bordeaux''s coach Laurent Blanc told Foot Plus channel.
"The guys have been achieving extraordinary things. It would be really hard to do a better job but if another team managed to do so then they would deserve to be crowned champions," he added.
After Le Mans had opened the scoring against the run of play midway through the first half, Morocco striker Marouane Chamakh headed home the equaliser from a Yoann Gourcuff cross.
The France playmaker then put Bordeaux in front with a powerful volley in a packed goalmouth from a corner just before the interval.
After Le Tallec 54th-minute equalised with his second goal in a counter-attack, a Gourcuff volley from a Benoit Tremoulinas corner bounced off the post to defender Marc Planus who tapped into an empty net for the winner.
Ligue 1''s top scorer Andre-Pierre Gignac netted his 22nd goal of the season to help fifth-placed Toulouse salvage a 2-2 draw at strugglers St Etienne.
Toulouse are fifth on 60 points while St Etienne are in 17th place, the last above the relegation zone, with 37 points, one ahead of Sochaux, who lost 2-0 at Caen.