A visiting Lille side left the Stade Louis II with just the one point on Sunday, May 14, as the Monegasques put up a fight but were ultimately goalless in the fixture against their equal opponents.
It would be the visitors with the first real opportunity to score 11 minutes into the match. However, Jonathan David’s header from a corner kick was caught by a careful Alexander Nübel. Monaco’s Takumi Minamino made a cross of his own into the opposing box five minutes later but was unable to find a teammate.
Myron Boadu came close to opening the scoring for the Monegasques at the 32nd minute, but the Dutch striker was unable to beat Lille’s sweeping goalkeeper Lucas Chevalier.
The tit-for-tat match carried on into the second half, in which Nübel rose up to the task of keeping a clean sheet at least. The German goalie made a handful of important saves against Timothy Weah and Jonathan Bamba, even stopping a powerful shot face to face with the Ivorian striker at the 69th minute.
Minamino had fans on the edge of their seats with a late goal, which was disappointingly, albeit logically refused for being offside. A hopeful Philippe Clement then brought on Breel Embolo, appearing on the pitch for the first time since sustaining a knee injury in March. However, the Swiss striker was understandably not the super substitute that he usually is, and the final whistle marked a 0-0 draw for Monaco at home.
Given that Lille were just below Monaco in the Ligue 1 table before the match, the one point from a draw today is a hugely better result than a loss and three points to ‘Les Dogues’. Instead, Clement and co.’ solidify their fourth place in the standings, with a slightly comfortable margin of five points between them and the visitors.
Just three matches remain in this Ligue 1 season, the next of which will see Monaco take on Lyon at the Groupama Stadium on Friday, May 19.
Featured image courtesy of @AS_Monaco on Twitter