Soccer-Lens hammer Angers 5-1 to go top of Ligue 1


LENs, France, ⁠March 20 (Reuters) - Lens forward Florian Thauvin scored one goal ⁠and created another as his side cruised to a 5-1win ‌over Angers at Stade Bollaert-Delelis on Friday to move top of the Ligue 1 standings ahead of Paris St Germain, who have two games in hand.

Lens ​lead the table on 59 points ⁠from 27 games, with PSG ⁠two points behind them in second, and the Parisians can go ⁠back ‌to the top of the table with a win at Nice on Saturday.

Lens, whose title hopes suffered a ⁠blow when they slumped to a 2-1 defeat ​at FC Lorient ‌last weekend, took control of the game early and Thauvin ⁠opened the ​scoring with a neat finish in the 13th minute.

Angers, 12th in the table, were punished for giving the ball away cheaply when Thauvin ⁠played in Odsonne Edouard who chipped the ​ball home to make it 2-0 in the 25th minute.

Mamadou Sangare forced a fine save from Angers keeper Oumar Pona with a left-foot ⁠strike, but the keeper could do nothing to prevent him from scoring soon afterwards, and Edouard netted his second and 12th of the season to make it 4-0 three minutes into the ​second half.

Angers pulled a goal back through ⁠20-year-old forward Lanroy Machine in the 62nd minute, but the four-goal ​leadwas restored in spectacular fashion as ‌Angers again coughed up the ball ​and Matthieu Udol scored with an acrobatic volley to complete the rout.

(Reporting by Philip O'Connor, editing by Ed Osmond)

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