Olympique de Marseille finished second in Ligue 1 last season and will try to fight for the title together with PSG and perhaps Monaco and Lyon this season. They started well with a 3-1 win at home to EA Guingamp, but all the Marseille goals came early and – more importantly – they played very sloppy in the defence. They discussed this in Eurotalk and both Thomas Wilbacher and Kalle Karlsson agreed on that their defence leaked extremely and that talented and highly valued defender Nicolas N’Koulou was a catastrophe. Listen below (around 1:50:00).

Marseille have a strong offensive squad with players like Gignac, the Ayew brothers, Valbuena, and new signing Payet.

Moreover, the powerful defensive midfielder Imbula from Guingamp seems to be a very good signing. He was the best player in the second division last season and was linked with Arsenal earlier this summer.

Marseille were not involved in many goal-rich battles last season but there might be more Marseille goals from now on. I certainly hope so since I place early bets on over 2.5 goals in Marseille’s next three games. Due to the statistics from the last season the prices for over 2.5 goals in their forthcoming games are high and will perhaps decrease if they continue to play more openly. I find good value in all three games at the moment.

Highlights from EA Guingamp v Olympique de Marseille can be seen below. You should especially observe the sloppy defensive play from Marseille in a few situations, e.g. Diawara’s extremely clumsy tackle that led to a Guingamp penalty (around 2:30 minutes in) and from N’Koulou before the goal (around 3:05). Also observe the wonderful piece from Valbuena that nearly resulted in a super goal (around 2:00 in).

Bet 1: Saturday, 17 Aug 2013, Marseille vs Evian TG over 2.5 goals at 2.00 (Bwin). 1 unit.

Bet 2: Saturday, 24 Aug 2013, Valenciennes vs Marseille over 2.5 goals at 2.20 (Bwin). 1.5 units.

Bet 3: Sunday, 01 Sep 2013, Marseille vs Monaco over 2.5 goals at 2.18 (Marathonbet). 1 unit.